Howard Pyle 
ef Chronicle 


CHARLES D. ABBOTT 





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Howard Pyle 
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From 
HOW THE DECLARATION WAS RECEIVED 
IN THE OLD THIRTEEN 

Harper's Magazine, 1892 














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THE MERMAID 

Painted by Howard Pyle in 1910 

Now in the possession of Mrs. Howard Pyle 
Here reproduced for the first time 






Howard Pyle 
el Chronicle 

By Charles D. Abbott wat 

an Introduction by N.C Wyeth 


ano Many Illustrations 
trom Howard Pyle’s Works 












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Harper & Brothers A:dlhers 
New York & London MCMXXV 


Howard Pylene4e Chrondgcle 

Copyright, 71 925 Dy .arpes 

& Brothers. Printed in the 

United States of America. 
First Edition 


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From 

THE ONE HOSS SHAY 
Copyright, 1892, by 
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Printed by Permission 





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THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE 
UNITED STATES 


Harper's Magazine, 1896 


From 


Acknowledgments 


The author wishes to thank Howard Pyle’s many friends 
and pupils who have so regularly and so courteously been of 
assistance to him in the preparation of this work; and in 
particular he desires to express his grateful appreciation of 
the invaluable suggestions given to him by Mr. Walter S. 
Hinchman, Professor William Peterfield Trent, and Mrs. 
Charles G. Prettyman. The thoughtful codperation of the 
various members of the artist’s immediate family can never 


be adequately described or fully acknowledged. 


From 
HOW THE DECLARATION WAS 





RECEIVED IN THE OLD THIRTEEN 


Harper's Magazine, 1892 


(ontents 


CHAPTER PAGE 
INTRODUCTION Xi 
I. Wutmincton, QuAKERS, AND YOUTHFUL AMBITIONS I 

Il. Tue Cruciste or New YorK 17 
II]. Frurrrut Associations 44 
IV. Tue Return 67 
V. ‘Macic CasEMENTS”’ 92 
VI. Tue Mrippte Aces Iil 
VII. “Tue Bioopy QuakKER” 132 
VIII. Tue Sprrir or AMERICA LG2 
IX. PurtosopHer anp Mystic 177 
X. ScHoots AND THEORIES OF ART 203 
XI. Murat DEcoraTION 228 


XII. Iraty AND THE END . 239 


Tllustrations 


Pen Drawing from How THE DECLARATION WAs RECEIVED IN THE OLD 


EI pA 0 geek PON Me ar cre eta an ee i 
THE MERMAID. Painted in 1910. Here reproduced for the first 

MEA OE gg i One ts eee g wears cae we ee Frontispiece 
Pepewrawiig irom THe ONE Hoss SHAy, 1892 ..........-. iv 


Pen Drawing from THe First PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1896 vi 
Pen Drawing from How THE DECLARATION Was RECEIVED IN THE OLD 


UM EES ee fe sik g ot ec) We. be ol ew Se Oa a all we ae new oi vili 
Pen Drawing from Tom CHIST AND THE TREASURE Box, 1896... . xx 
Pen Drawing from ‘THe One Hoss SHay, 1892 .......... xxi 
Pen Drawing from SEA RopBers oF NEw York, 1894........ XXii 
ay emer DHE OFRING!? 1878 260. ee ee es Facing ~. 10 
Pen Drawing from THE WONDER CLOcK, 1886 ....... Facing p. 18 
Pen Drawing from THE WonpeER CLOocK, 1886 ....... Facing p. 24 
Pen Drawing from THE WoNDER CLOCK, 1887 ....... Facing p. 30 
Pen Drawing from THE WONDER CLOCK, 1887 ....... Facing p. 38 


DEFENSE OF THE STATION. From THE KENTUCKY PIONEERS, 1887 
Facing p. 46 
CAPTURE OF THE GALLEON. From BUCCANEERS AND MAROONERS 


emer ieee awist MAIN, 3887 09.0. eee ee Facing p. 54 
MAROONED. From BuccANEERS AND MAROONERS OF THE SPANISH 
DE ey see a Ve ds) be Bee wt Facing p. 60 


A SAILOR’S SWEETHEART. From By LAnp anp SEA, 1895 

Facing p. 68 
Pen Drawing from TomM CHIST AND THE TREASURE Box, 1896. Page 71 
THE CHOICEST PIECES OF CARGO WERE SOLD AT AUCTION. 


From New York SLAVE TRADERS, 1895 ........ Facing p. 74 
WASHINGTON AND MARY PHILIPSE. From CoLtoneL Wasu- 

PEEL OU MMe td cha sles Vhs ee int etalon bide Shae he Facing p. 82 
WASHINGTON AND NELLIE CUSTIS. From Tue First PResipeNntT 

Rar Eee MIPS CSTATES, 18969) 6-15. es he we ee ees Facing p. 88 


ESCAPE OF ARNOLD. From GENERAL WASHINGTON, 1896. Facing p. 96 
IN THE OLD RALEIGH TAVERN. From At HoME IN VIRGINIA, 


ED genes e's ahs Lebo Greiat a: go aire ie ne tap ie Re tk Facing p. 104 
ARRIVAL OF STUYVESANT IN NEW AMSTERDAM. From 
Peer eseAn NATIONS, F901) sti apes Se ey otoetle ie ia ce Facing p. 112 


ILLUSTRATIONS 





Pen Drawing from Tom CHIST AND THE TREASURE Box, 1896. Page 
First Sketch for VIEWING THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL, 1901. Facing }. 
Second Sketch for VIEWING THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL, 1901. 
Facing >. 
Pen Drawing from ToM CHIST AND THE TREASURE Box, 1896. Page 
VIEWING THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. From A History oF 
THE! AMERICAN PEOPLE, {T90%. «\[cc0) pa miele te ee ee Facing >. 
Sketch for Tory REFUGEES ON THEIR Way TO CANADA, 1901. Facing pp. 
THE FISHING OF THOR AND HYMIR. From NortH Fok 


LEGENDS OF THE SEA, 1902. (Im Color) .-. 2°. «0 .) ame Facing p. 
WHEN ALL THE WORLD WAS YOUNG, 1892. (Jz color) 

Facing >. 

Pen Drawing from THE ONE Hoss SHAY, 1892 .......-. Page 

Pen Drawing from THE STory oF KiNG ARTHUR AND His KNIGHTS, 1903 

Facing >. 

Pen Drawing from THE Story oF KING ARTHUR AND His KNIGHTS, 1903 

; Facing p. 

Pen Drawing from THE STory OF K1nc ARTHUR AND His KNIGHTS, 1903 

Facing >. 

AT THE GATE OF THE CASTLE. From PErreE VIDAL, TROUBADOR, 

1903. (Incolar) eo 5 The EP eee ee Facing p. 


HER HEAD AND SHOULDERS HUNG OVER THE SPACE 
WITHOUT. From Tue Maw or LANpDEVENNEC, 1904. (In color) 


Facing >. 

CAP'N: GOLDSACK: ‘1902 0.2 Go aie es Facing >. 
WHO SHALL BE CAPTAIN? From THE BUCCANEERS, 1911. 
(In calor) 6o% Bi ow Na ee pe De Facing p. 
HOWARD PYLE. From a Photographs..." .0~ see Facing >. 
Pen Drawing from How THE DECLARATION WAS RECEIVED IN THE OLD 
THIRTEEN, 2892. 52 (9-5 3 iw ew) kite yd wih aot a Page 


[ xii 


120 
122 


130 
133 


136 
142 


148 


156 
161 


162 


168 


174 


249 


Introduction 


S THE privilege of writing a foreword to the rec- 

ord of Howard Pyle’s work has come to one of 
his pupils, the point of view cannot be other than that 
of student to master. Perhaps, after all, his great appeal as 
a man can be better revealed from this exceptional and in- 
timate relationship; and, as an artist must be greater than 
his works, so, it seems to me, the humblest efforts to tell of 
the man are to some purpose. 

I am hardly the one to write of the tremendous impulse 
Howard Pyle gave to the improvement of magazine and 
book illustration, or of his intense earnestness and enormous 
success in emerging from the slackwater period in art which 
came at the end of the Victorian era—a period singularly 
stagnant in the field of graphic expression. With what 
energy and courage he pushed forward, almost alone, 
pouring into his hundreds of illustrations such sincerity and 
enthusiasm, such dramatic force, that the world of cultiva- 
tion paused to look upon and applaud his efforts. 

Meanwhile, his astonishing fertility of imagination and 
unequaled energy were producing written story after story 
for young readers, books which have since become juvenile 
classics: The Wonder Clock, Pepper and Salt, several rich 
volumes dealing with King Arthur and his knights, and 
his now famous Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, recog- 
nized in England today as the supreme modern interpreta- 
tion in words and pictures of their beloved legend—these 

[ xiii] 


INTRODUCTION 


and many other volumes, of adventures with pirates, of 
excursions into the mystic land of souls and symbols, and 
even the daring, realistic fantasy dealing with the return 
of Christ in modern times. Within the covers of certain of 
these books are preserved Pyle’s most important contribu- 
tions to the world of art. I refer particularly to the pen 
drawings which adorn the pages of the Arthurian legends. 

One wonders at and delights in his tone drawings and 
paintings in color, especially those depicting Colonial life. | 
One marvels at the felicitous display of intimate knowledge 
of that remote period, and one is thrilled again and again 
by the masterfully dramatic presentation of incidents. All 
this is true, but for abstract beauty, character, and the com- 
pelling force of decorative craftsmanship (three enduring 
virtues in art) Howard Pyle’s pen drawings represent his 
highest artistic achievement. They stand with the greatest 
works of all time done in this medium. 

But Howard Pyle the man towers above his best efforts, 
and it is of the man that I feel more competent to speak. 

A great stick of hickory is smoldering and gleaming in 
the fireplace before me. Its pungent fragrance scents the 
room. My pulse quickens to the magic aroma and my 
thought flies back to a day in October, eighteen years ago, 
when I first saw Howard Pyle. He was standing, tall, 
broad, and impressive, legs apart, hands clasped behind him, 
backed against another such open fire in his studio. The 
smell of burning hickory was in the air. 

I had come to him, as many had before me, for his help 
and guidance, and his first words to me will forever ring 
in my ears as an unceasing appeal to my conscience: “My 
boy, you have come here for help. Then you must live 

[ xiv | 


INTRODUCTION | 


your best, and work hard!” His broad, kindly face looked 
solemn as he spoke those words, and from that moment 
I knew that he meant infinitely more to me than a mere 
teacher of illustration. It was this commanding spirit of 
earnestness and of love that made his leadership distinc- 
tive, and which has perpetuated in the hearts of all his pupils 
a deep affection akin to that which one holds toward his 
own parents. 

Who of his associates (and, after all, we were associates 
as well as students) can forget the somber hours in the 
gloaming, when, after a hard day’s work before our easels, 
we sat in the class studio, watching with blissful content the 
fading square patch of the skylight, warm with the light 
of the afterglow, violet, then a dim, dusty gray? Who of 
us has not thrilled in these moments, when suddenly we 
heard the dull jar of the master’s door, the slight after- 
rattle of the brass knocker as it closed, and the faint sound 
of his footsteps on the brick walk? And then, as we had 
hoped, our own door was opened and he entered in the dim 
light and sat among us. 

I can see him now, the soft overhead light faintly 
modeling his large, generous features, his massive fore- 
head and deep-set eyes, the breadth between the eyes and 
the prominent cheek bones. Breaking the tense silence, he 
would talk ina soft, hushed voice, of art, its relation to life, 
his aspirations, his aspirations for us. Only too soon he 
would say good-night and leave us in the darkness, and, as 
we felt for.our hats and coats, each one knew that every 
jaw was set to do better in life and work and in some 
measure to express our deep gratitude to the one who had 
inspired us. 


[xv] 


INTRODUCTION 


There are many in this world who radiate the feeling of 
love and earnestness of purpose, but who have not the 
faculty or power to impart the rudiments of accomplish- 
ment. There is nothing in this world that will inspire the 
purpose of youth like the combined strength of spirituality 
and practical assistance. It gives the young student a 
definite clew, as it were, to the usefulness of being upright 
and earnest. Howard Pyle abounded in this power and 
lavished it upon all who were serious. 

It seemed almost miraculous as we watched week by 
week the rapid unfolding of a new member (to our un- 
practiced thought, however, hopelessly crude and un- 
promising). One could mark the distinct advances in his 
efforts. Wretched, unstable drawing would quickly as- 
sume coherent shape and character; raw and uncouth concep- 
tions would develop and become softened and refined, until 
in a marvelously short time the student would find himself, 
and emerge upon that elevation of thinking and feeling 
which would disclose before him a limitless horizon of 
possibilities. 

Howard Pyle’s extraordinary ability as a teacher lay 
primarily in his penetration. He could read beneath the 
crude lines on paper the true purpose, detect therein our real 
inclinations and impulses; in short, unlock our personalities. 
This power was in no wise a superficial method handed out 
to those who would receive. We received in proportion to 
that which was fundamentally within us. | 

I recall an instance. One member, an ungainly lad from 
the back country of northern New England, found his way 
into the Pyle classes. He had dreamed, in his remote 
village, of becoming an artist; of picturing his visions of 

[xvi | 


INTRODUCTION 


cities he had never seen, and of the lives of the people 
therein. He had come into the composition class week after 
week with sketches of society folk and kindred subjects. 
They were, naturally, unconvincing and poor, but the mas- 
ter’s interest in them did not flag. Meanwhile, he assidu- 
ously gathered from the fellow accounts of his life in the 
north woods, of breaking snow-roads, of gathering maple- 
sap, of log-driving, of corn-husking. It began to dawn 
upon the Vermonter that his own life at home, the incidents 
of his own north country, which he knew and loved, were 
interesting. His pictures gained in vitality and importance. 
He had found himself. 

I doubt if Howard Pyle ever had a student who did not 
at some time or other experience some such awakening as 
this while under his direction. 

I can recall many instances of his generous interest and 
boyish enthusiasm which have made us all the richer. We 
spent days with him rummaging around old furniture shops, 
hunting for seasoned mahogany for panels to paint upon, 
and we spent very much more time with him roaming the 
gorgeous hills and woods of the Brandywine valley at 
Chadds Ford. 

It was the time spent with him in this remote Pennsyl- 
vania village that brings the fondest memories to most of 
us. I have the keenest and most enjoyable remembrances 
of him, surrounded by his wife and family of six children, 
in a large, roomy house that nestled in the trees beneath 
a great hill, within a stone’s throw of General Lafayette’s 
Headquarters. Many jolly evenings did we spend before 
his crackling log fires, eating nuts, telling stories, or, best 
of all, listening to his reminiscences, or stories from his 

[ xvii | 


INTRODUCTION 


oe NE eee 
full store of knowledge of history and of people. Hus 
intimacy with Colonial history and his sympathetic and au- 
thentic translations of those times into pictures are known 
and loved the world over. 

Thus to know Howard Pyle—in this country of all coun- 
tries, where Washington had fought, where from the 
spacious veranda we looked across the meadows upon Rocky 
Hill, the very location of the deciding conflict that sent 
Washington and his men to their memorable winter at Valley 
Forge—to know Howard Pyle here was a profound privi- 
lege. His accurate knowledge of the Battle of the Brandy- 
wine; his vivid word pictures of marches and counter- 
marches, skirmishes and retreats; his anecdotes of the very 
families who had seen the running fight; the tales told him 
by his great-grandmother, who distinctly remembered the 
retreating Continentals, trailing their muskets over the dry 
fields of September, their shoeless bleeding feet wrapped 
in gunny-sack—these, and a thousand other things. En- 
thusiastic, generous, with a marvelous knowledge of events 
and a rich and versatile imagination, can you wonder that 
we loved him? , 

How can I tell in words the life of the thirty or more 
who lived in these historic, picturesque, rolling hills, work- 
ing in the spacious and grain-scented rooms of an old grist- 
mill? To recall the unceasing, soft rush of the water as it 
flowed over the huge, silent wheel beneath us thrills me 
through. I loved it. And here the teacher kept his class 
intact for five glorious summers. Who of us does not 
count those as golden days? 

As we are slowly maturing into the various and inde- 
pendent ways of arriving at the solution of our personal 

[ xvii | 


INTRODUCTION 


viewpoint in art, we may feel at times a little impatient 
that we are not more individual, and that we have inherited 
a little too much from Howard Pyle that does not by right 
belong to us. But even s0, it is likely that he awakened 
in many of us ennobling visions which without his golden 
touch might have always slept. 


N. C. Wveru 


Cuapps Forp 


PENNSYLVANIA 


JUNE, 1925 


[ xix] 





From 


TOM CHIST AND THE TREASURE BOX 
Harper’s Round Table, 1896 


Howard Pyle 
cA Chronicle 


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From 

THE ONE HOSS SHAY 
Copyright, 1892, by 
HovcuTon, Mirriin & Co. 
Printed by Permission 






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SEA ROBBERS OF NEW YORK 
Harper’s Magazine, 1894 








HOWARD PYLE 
eA Chronicle 


CHAPTER I 


WILMINGTON, QUAKERS, AND YOUTHFUL 
AMBITIONS 


; ITLMINGTON in the sixth and seventh decades of 
the last century was an enterprising city, vigorous 

in its manufacturing interests, strong in its leadership of an 
advancing state, and happy in its location in the midst of a 
rich and prosperous farming district. It was an old settle- 
ment, far older than its northern neighbor, Philadelphia; 
the town of Christiania from which Wilmington developed 
had been settled by the Swedes in 1638. But the Swedish 
colony had undergone many changes. It had from time to 
time been overrun by the Dutch from-New York, who, re- 
membering the unfortunate expedition of De Vries, claimed 
prior possession. The English, also, after their acquisition 
of New York, had put in an active appearance now and then. 
After this period of change Wilmington had had its 
renascence shortly after the good ship Welcome sailed up 
the Delaware in 1682, bringing with it a band of people 
imbued not only with the religious calmness and philosophy 
of George Fox, but also with the civic spirit and idealism of 
William Penn. The Quakers soon spread over most of 
southern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware, and the old 


a 


HOWARD PYLE: VALCHRONICLE 


Swedish background of Wilmington was slowly absorbed 
into the new orderliness of the Friends. From that time the 
colony developed steadily; its Quaker population took as 
active a part in the separation from England as its religious 
tenets would permit, and Delaware was the first state to 
recognize the worth of the Constitution. 

After the strenuous times of the Revolution and after the 
final settling of things to something like quietude, there was 
a general increase in literary and artistic interest among 
these people. The Quakers, educated for generations, read 
nearly all the prevalent literature of the day. They were 
absorbed in the radical movements of the time; Wilmington 
was a hotbed of anti-slaveryism. Liberalism was the nat- 
ural result of the uninterrupted development of Quaker 
culture. Further, the desire for intellectual advance made 
the people unusually receptive to spiritualism and all the 
other isms of the day—often leading whole communities of 
advanced Friends into rambling fields of aimless specula- 
tion. This spirit of mental curiosity also tended to develop 
men and women possessing remarkable broad-mindedness, 
remarkable literary and artistic vision. Among others it 
evolved Bayard Taylor, a member of the same family which 
was later to produce Howard Pyle. 

It was into such a state of society that Howard Pyle was 
born on March 5, 1853. He was sprung on both sides of 
the family from old Quaker stock, some of his forbears 
being among those who came over originally in the Wel- 
come. Both his father, William Pyle, and his mother, 
Margaret Churchman Pyle, were persons of unusual cul- 
ture; both were vital influences throughout his early devel- 
opment. His mother, in particular, was an eager spirit, 


[2] 


WILMINGTON, QUAKERS & AMBITIONS 


always in quest of the beautiful and the interesting. She 
was a leader in the intellectual life of the city and was 
always one of the prime movers in the reforms of the day, 
social and otherwise. She had had the keenest desire to 
fulfill her own dreams of a literary and artistic career, and 
when this had become an impossibility, she had passed on 
her desire to her children, encouraging and leading them on 
with the broadest and most perfect sympathy. The doc- 
trines of Swedenborg were permeating the community, and 
Mrs. Pyle was soon interested in them. The beautiful mys- 
ticism of these new ideas appealed strongly to one who had 
always been of a mystically poetic temperament, and who 
had always accepted, without equivocation, the spiritual side 
of the doctrines of the Friends. She trained her children in 
the paths of Swedenborg and instilled in them a permanent 
interest in the indefinably mystic. But her influence was 
even more important in another way—she possessed a most 
cultivated taste in literature, and she kept continually before 
her children the books which appealed to her. Her own 
enthusiasms were easily transmitted to them. At a very 
early age they were absorbed in reading, or in having read to 
them, not only such favorites as Pilgrim’s Progress and 
Robinson Crusoe, but the novels of Dickens and Thackeray. 
Moreover, she had kept from childhood a lively fondness 
for fairy tales, and these, in particular, she introduced to her 
children. From this early training, Howard undoubtedly 
drew much of the inspiration for his later work. Nothing 
could have been more fortunate for him than the possession 
of such a mother. 

It is even possible to trace back the interest in illustration 
to these days of his mother’s influence. He once wrote: 


[re] 


HOWARD PYLE ALGHRONICZLE 


“My mother was very fond of pictures in books. A num- 
ber of prints hung on the walls of our house: there were 
engravings of Landseer and Holman Hunt’s pictures, and 
there was a colored engraving of Murillo’s Madonna stand- 
ing balanced on the crescent moon, and there was pretty 
smiling Beatrice Cenci, and several others that were thought 
to be good pictures in those days. But we—my mother and 
I—liked the pictures in the books the best of all. I may 
say to you in confidence that even to this very day I still 
like the pictures you find in books better than wall 
pictures. . 

“I can remember many and many an hour in which I lay 
stretched out before the fire upon the rug in the snug, warm 
little library, whilst the hickory logs snapped and crackled 
in the fireplace, and the firelight twinkled on the andirons, 
and the snow, maybe, was softly falling outside, covering all 
the far-away fields with a blanket of white,—many and many 
an hour do I remember lying thus, turning over leaf after 
leaf of those English papers [Punch and the Illustrated 
London News], or of that dear old volume of The Newcomes 
(the one with the fables on the title page), or of The Old 
Curiosity Shop where you may see the picture of Master 
Humphrey with the dream people flying about his head. So 
looking at the pictures, my mother, busy with the work on 
her lap, would tell me the story that belonged to each. 

“Thus it was that my mother taught me to like books and 
pictures, and I cannot remember the time when I did not 
like them; so that time, perhaps, was the beginning of that 
taste that led me to do the work I am now doing.” * 


*«When I Was a Little Boy,” Woman’s Home Companion, April, 1912, 
XXXIX, (Pass 
[4] 


WILMINGTON, QUAKERS & AMBITIONS 


During these early days the family—there were, at that 
time, two other sons, Clifford and Walter, who were both 
younger than Howard (a daughter, Katherine, was born 
somewhat later)—lived just outside the city. In Howard’s 
own words, “ ... The house... was the quaintest, 
dearest old place you can imagine. It was built of stone, and 
there were really three houses joined together. 

“There was an old part built about 1740, I think. Stand- 
ing against that was another part built about 1780, and then 
my father built an addition that stood against the 1780 part 
of the house, so when you went from one of these parts to 
another, you had to go up one step and down another. 

“In front of the house was a grassy lawn with a terraced 
bank (I used to roll over and over down that bank in the 
soft, warm grass on a summer’s day), and there was a little 
grove, or park of trees, to one side, and beyond you could 
see the turnpike road. I remember that every now and then 
there would be a train of Conestoga wagons that would pass 
along the highroad in a great cloud of dust, carrying lime 
from Lancaster County in Pennsylvania to the neighboring 
town for export. These big wagons were always very won- 
derful to me. They looked like great clumsy ships that had 
come from afar, and sometimes the leading team of eight 
mules, bedecked with gay harness trimmed with crimson 
leather and brass, were adorned with silver bells that rang 
a merry tune as they passed along the highway. 

“On the other side of the house to a little distance was 
a garden of old, old-fashioned roses and sweet shrubs that 
filled the air with fragrance when they were abloom. And 
there were beds of tulips and daffodillies, and there were 


fod 


HOWARD PYLE se aeG Oo RONICGIE 


gravelled walks edged with box, and a greenhouse of 
shining glass at the lower end of the garden. And there 
was a wooden summer-house at the end of one of the gravel 
walks, and altogether it was such a garden as you would 
hardly find outside of a story book. It seems to me that 
when I think of that garden I cannot remember anything 
but bloom and beauty, air filled with the odor of growing 
things, and birds singing in the shady trees in such a fashion 
as they do not sing nowadays... . ”* 

Even in these very early days, Howard was beginning 
to show signs of the interest which was later to develop into 
his profession. He tells a quaint little story of himself, 
showing how his mother’s influence and the spirit of the 
household were already at work. 

“‘, . . There was a great rock by the garden wall where 
there were ferns and ivy. I remember one time—I think 
it was springtime, and I know that the afternoon sun was 
bright and warm—I was inspired to write a poem. My 
mother gave me some gilt-edged paper and a lead pencil, 
and I went out to this rock where I might be alone with 
my inspiration and purpose. It was not until I had wet my 
pencil point in my mouth, and was ready to begin my com- 
position, that I realized that I was not able to read or 
write. I shall never forget how helpless and impotent 
Estelt rete ge aoe 

But these days of idyllic beauty could not last. The finan- 
cial affairs of the family were suffering, as did those of so 
many families at the time, from the effects of the war on 


*“When I Was a Little Boy,” Woman’s Home Companion, April, 1912, 
vol. xxxix, p. 5. 
[6] 


WILMINGTON, QUAKERS & AMBITIONS 


business conditions, and the picturesque house in the coun- 
try, with its antique garden, had to be given up. The re- 
moval into the city, however, was not without its advantages: 
here Mrs. Pyle was able to enter more fully into the 1n- 
tellectual activities which had always fascinated her; here 
there was an opportunity for more social intercourse; and 
here the children saw more of the active life of the times. 
The war was in full swing; Wilmington was busy; troops 
were continually pouring through to Virginia from New 
England; soldiers in long trains would stop in the old 
station, and the people—Wilmington was thoroughly with 
the North in sympathy—would cheer them on. The spirit 
was contagious; it had its effect on the impressionable mind 
of Howard Pyle. He carried through life a vivid interest 
in all things connected with the Civil War—an interest 
that spread to all other phases of his country’s history. He 
himself describes one of his first pictorial ventures into 
the field:. 

«¢., . For many years I had an original picture, drawn 
by myself and tinted with water color (I was eight years 
old when I made it), representing a bandy-legged zouave 
waving a flag and brandishing a sword as he threatened a 
wretched Confederate with annihilation. There were lots 
of smoke and bombshells in the picture, and a blazing can- 
non and an array of muskets and bayonets passing behind 
a hill, so that you would not have to draw all the soldiers 
who carried them. Accompanying this picture was a legend 
telling how the cannon-thunder roars, how the sword flashes 
in the air and falls upon the enemy of the nation. The text, 
I remember, concluded with these words, ‘Ded! Ded! Ded 


byl 


HOWARD: PYLEZS AUCH RONICES 


is the cesioner!? (Secessionist! I was never a good hand 
at spelling).” * | 

Since Howard was now old enough to gain something 
by a little study, his parents sent him to school—first, to the 
old Friends’ School, and then to Clark and Taylor’s. Here 
by his own confession he was far more interested in draw- 
ing pictures on his slate or in the margins of his books, than 
he was in the intricacies of grammar or arithmetic. He 
continued to go for a number of years, but the training re- 
ceived at the hands of his mother during these same years 
was to prove far more valuable than that given by schools. 
One of the books to which his mother introduced him during 
this period was Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 
which gave him a vigorous interest in Robin Hood, and 
which was soon followed by Ritson’s charming old collection 
of popular ballads that centered around the life of Eng- 
land’s outlaw hero. From these early introductions was to 
spring one of the best of children’s books some twenty years 
later. Other literature was occupying his attention— 


Malory’s Morte d’Arthur and many collections of German 
folk and fairy tales—and through it all his pencil was 


seldom still. Rough, crude sketches surrounded the family 
on all sides. 

He was not to any considerable extent a sociable boy. 
While he joined in the play of his school companions, and 
was popular in a way among them, he was far easier when 
off by himself, sketching away with some romantic idea 
in his head, or when peacefully sitting at home happily 
intent on some tale of the Middle Ages. These signs of 


*“When I Was a Little Boy,” Woman’s Home Companion, April, 1912, 
vol. xxxix, p. 5. 
[8 ] 


WILMINGTON, QUAKERS & AMBITIONS 


a distinctive personality did not discourage or alarm his 
family, as they are so likely to do among more conventional 
people. His mother had visions of her son fulfilling the 
dreams which she had had in her own childhood and youth, 
and was overjoyed that he was giving such manifestations 
of promise. He was allowed to sketch and to scribble 
away—for he wanted to write as well as to draw—as much 
as he pleased, and his mother was always ready to make 
suggestions and to criticize whatever he produced. Who 
would deny that such patience and such sympathy on the 
part of the mother had an incomparable effect on the de- 
velopment of the impulses already strong in the child? Of 
course, there were moments when more typically boyish 
ambitions stirred within him. There was a decided thrill 
in watching the locomotives come rushing through on the 
old Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad, 
and he dreamed of the glories of being a train engineer. 
And those delightful years in the country had given a 
glamour to that sort of life, that made him occasionally look 
forward to being a farmer. This last may, perhaps, have 
been merely a result of family habit, for his ancestors had 
been for many generations farmers in the peaceful Penn- 
sylvania and Delaware hills. Always, however, he came 
back to the continual sketching; there was scarcely ever a 
break of any considerable length of time. 

Punch continued to be one of the principal reading 
supplies of the family. In his later letters, Howard speaks 
again and again of the pictures by Leech and Doyle and 
Tenniel, and the essays by Thackeray and Douglas Jer- 
rold. These had an immeasurable influence on his work, 
especially that of his earliest period. It was at this time 


L9 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


that he absorbed the spirit and purpose of those hearty 
Englishmen. And the illustrated books continued to de- 
light him. Barnaby Rudge, The Old Curiosity Shop, and 
The Newcomes, read again and again, made a deep im- 
pression on his plastic mind and remained favorites during 
the rest of his life. 

When Howard was about fifteen or sixteen years old, his 
parents decided that it would be best to send him to college. 
Then there followed a weary time of preparation. 
Through many hours of Latin and algebra he was joyously 
uninterested. What did college mean to a youth who was 
more anxious to learn how to get a certain shady effect in 
the background of a pen-and-ink sketch, than he was in 
knowing what Cicero said in support of the Manilian Law? 
The parents struggled, and Howard remained unmoved 
and unconvinced. Mrs. Pyle felt that college would not 
harm his talent for drawing and that it might decidedly 
improve his literary instincts. But the struggle was in vain. 
She had to surrrender at last, and Howard was permitted 
to go on with his drawing and scribbling—doing, perhaps, 
the very best thing for the strengthening of his imagina- 
‘tion. Might not college have left an unfortunate and in- 
delible sophistication on the mind that was to create the 
W onder Clock? 

Study with one’s self, no matter how excellent it may be 
for a time, cannot go on forever without ending in a kind 
of futility. This was the opinion of the Pyle family when 
Howard had finally committed himself to a life of artistic 
endeavor. The pecuniary circumstances of the family were 
somewhat straitened at the time, and it was idle to dream 
of sending the boy off to Europe to study with Gérome in 


[ 10 | 


ger ‘A1yaa y 8 4adsvyy 
«PONIASAO AHL NI MOdUM,, 








— 5 x ni E 


WILMINGTON, QUAKERS & AMBITIONS 


Paris or Piloty in Munich. Besides, he had not been sufh- 
ciently trained in academic methods. Then, also, Americans 
were not so much in the habit of rushing off to Europe to 
find an art education as they are in these days. Still, it 
was obviously necessary for Howard to study somewhere, 
and Philadelphia seemed to present the greatest opportuni- 
ties. ‘There were two schools there where the young artist 
might conceivably do his work—the Academy of Fine Arts, 
where careful instruction could be obtained along general 
classical lines, and a little private school where a certain 
Mr. Van der Weilen conducted a small class. It was de- 
cided that Howard should go to the second of these. Had 
he gone to the Academy, he would unquestionably have 
met and been familiar with a young man, Edwin Austen 
Abbey, who was studying there at the time and who was 
later to be, for a short period, a companion and fellow 
worker with him. The advantages of being in a small 
class, however, where each pupil would receive a great | 
deal of attention from Mr. Van der Weilen himself, out- 
weighed all other arguments, and Howard became a regu- 
lar student, commuting back and forth from ‘Wilmington 
to Philadelphia. This was a great and momentous step; 
it crystallized into more certain form the ambitions which 
had been more or less inchoate before. He felt himself 
committed to a certain walk of life, and there is no ques- 
tion that he was satisfied with his choice. 

Mr. Van der Weilen had graduated from the school at 
Antwerp with high honors, but in pursuing his studies too 
zealously had committed an irreparable injury to his eye- 
sight. He had been left in such a condition that it was 
impossible for him to think of doing any considerable 


[ir] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


amount of original work himself, yet he could see sufh- 
ciently well to be of inestimable service to those pupils who 
were placed with him. With all the advantages of a Euro- 
pean training, with a full knowledge of the most accepted 
technique, he combined a real teaching skill, making every 
effort to cultivate and improve the imaginations of the 
young men who were in his class. But it was a stiff course 
of study that he prescribed; it was hard, almost never- 
ending work. There was slight opportunity for dreaming 
or building castles in the air. He was always there, al- 
ways vigorously insisting upon a close attention to the 
matter in hand, and the consequence was that his pupils— 
at least one of them—thought at the time that such work 
was drudgery. The taskmaster, however, was too efficient 
to allow such feelings to interfere with the regular routine. 
He kept them busily at their sketching and painting, and 
succeeded magnificently in giving them a technique. 

Howard continued his Philadelphia trips for three years, 
during which time he gathered a great deal of knowledge 
from the persistent teaching of Mr. Van der Weilen. This 
was the only systematic training that he ever had, for his 
later work at the Art Students’ League was certainly too 
disconnected to be of the greatest value. 

The Wilmington life went on. Sketching and scribbling 
could be done in the spare hours when there was nothing 
to do for Mr. Van der Weilen. And yet with it all Howard 
found time to help his father in the leather business which 
was not prospering too well in those panic-ridden early 
seventies. Mrs. Pyle continued to encourage her son, giving 
him the whole sympathy and power of her ardent spirit, 
never for a moment losing sight of the ambition which she 


[12] 


WILMINGTON, QUAKERS & AMBITIONS. 


had for him. And there was no lack of good reading. 
Trollope had come into fashion, and had found loyal sup- 
porters among the members of the Pyle household. Carlyle 
was attempted but thrown down with something of disgust 
in the gesture. William Dean Howells was beginning to 
appear above the horizon with Their Wedding Journey, 
and A Chance Acquaintance. ‘These Howard read with 
avidity; he took an unusual fancy to them, especially to the 
style in which they were written, and he conceived an in- 
tense admiration for Howells, which was later to ripen into 
a rich friendship. And there were discussions in the Pyle 
family, open-minded discussions in which such subjects as 
Darwinism were carefully weighed pro and con, while 
spiritualism and even metaphysics, not to mention Sweden- 
borg, were topics of absorbing interest. 

But after the “Van der Weilian course of sprouts,” as 
Howard called his Philadelphia experiences, was over, 
there began to be a waning in the young artist’s dreams of 
a career. He was working almost steadily in the leather 
establishment, and was heavily occupied not only with busi- 
ness but also with a variety of social activities. » Wilmington 
was a gay little city and there were many affairs which 
attracted him. There was plenty to do in Wilmington, 
and he was happy. He began to look upon his earlier 
ambitions as things of the past; he was occupied more 
with things of the present. Yet the creative urge was 
strong within, even if it did find its outlet in a desultory 
fashion. He spent numerous spare hours in composing 
rippling ballads, and in constructing short stories; he drew 
sketches to illustrate them and then usually destroyed them 
since they failed to measure up to his expectations. His 


[13 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: jASCHRONICLE 


artistic impulses were still strong, and growing stronger 
every day, but his ambition was almost dead. He needed 
a great awakening, and it came in the fall of 1876. 

In the spring of that year he had gone on an expedition 
to a little island off the coast of Virginia known as Chinco- 
teague, where there flourished a breed of wild ponies. He 
was there at the time when the owners penned and branded 
these horses, and was very greatly interested in the opera- 
tion. He watched it all in detail—how the horses were 
caught, how the branding was accomplished—and he es- 
pecially took notice of the people who did it. He grasped 
their personalities, learned all about them, caught the spirit 
of the local atmosphere. Then, when he returned to Wil- 
mington, he wrote about it and made sketches to go with 
his essay. It was a good description. It showed a real 
knowledge of the little island and a splendid grasp of the 
picturesque details. Mrs. Pyle immediately saw its value 
and advised him to send it off to Scribner's Monthly, which 
was in the habit of publishing such things. He had also 
written, not long before, a little poem entitled “The Magic 
Pill.’ It was a slight piece, rather after the manner of 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, but it was in creditable verse and 
was characterized by a somewhat novel idea. Moreover, 
the picture that he had drawn for it was very good, and 
went with the verses most fittingly. Both these were sent 
off to Scribner's at once. And immediately the old ambi- 
tions began to burst forth anew and with added vigor. 

It was not long before a pleasant little note came from 
Scribner's Monthly saying that both had been accepted— 
the poem for the Bric-a-brac section and the article for the 
body of the magazine. The editors were particularly 


[14 ] 


WILMINGTON, QUAKERS & AMBITIONS 


pleased with the illustrations, although the ones for “Chinco- 
teague” would have to be redrawn by their own staff of 
artists in order to be made suitable for purposes of repro- 
duction. The Pyle family was delighted; everything be- 
gan to look rosy for Howard. Then Mr. Roswell Smith, 
who was one of the owners of Scribner's Monthly, got into 
communication with Mr. Pyle and learned all the details 
about Howard. He advised that the young man come to 
New York, spend all his time in drawing and writing for 
the magazines, and develop his abilities until they should 
become of really great value. He implied that there would 
be no difficulty in getting plenty of work from Scribner’s, 
and succeeded in persuading Mr. Pyle that nothing would 
be easier than for Howard to make a good living. 

Of course, Howard himself, with his old fires rekindled 
by this sudden success, was not at all averse to plunging 
into the hurly-burly of New York. It was an opportunity 
not to be missed. Not only could he get a good start in 
the way of practical work for the periodicals, but he could 
also study again. There would be any number of good 
teachers there, and he could surely spare enough time from 
his work to be trained in the latest methods that had been 
brought over from Europe. Mrs. Pyle was a perfect 
mother in her devotion. She was deeply moved at the 
thought of her son’s being alone in the great metropolis; she 
would have loved to have him always in Wilmington, but his 
career was uppermost in her mind. Nothing would matter 
so long as her son became an artist and thus fulfilled her 
own dreams. Mr. Pyle’s circumstances, considerably reduced 
since the early days, could not permit of any great drains, 
but, nevertheless, it was decided that if Howard found it 


[15] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


difficult to make his way at first, he should be supported 
from the family purse. Accordingly, then, about the middle 
of October, 1876, he set out for New York, carrying with 
him the high hopes of his family and the glad confidence 


of young ambition. 


[ 16 ] 


CHAPTER II 
THE CRUCIBLE OF NEW YORK 


HE first thing to look for in New York was a place 

to board—not too expensive a place, for the 
income of a young artist could not easily be made 
to support one in luxurious surroundings. Howard knew 
very little of the city; he hadn’t the remotest idea where 
the so-called art centers were. Had he known where other 
people who were following his profession lived, he would 
undoubtedly have sought a harbor somewhere in that 
vicinity. But it was all new and strange; he thought merely 
of finding a comfortable boarding-house, not too far from 
the offices of Scribner’s and the other magazines, where he 
could work without interruption. But such a place was 
not easy to find. The nearer the prospective dwelling was 
to the offices, the higher price one had to pay for the privi- 
lege of living there. After considerable searching he finally 
found on Forty-eighth Street a vacant room in a boarding- 
house which was managed by two middle-aged ladies, the 
Misses Marshall. The odd thing about it was that these 
two women were former neighbors of his mother’s. They 
immediately took a fancy to the young man and saw to it 
that he was well supplied with the usual appurtenances of 
boarding-houses. Even under such pleasant conditions, 
however, Forty-eighth Street was not exactly an ideal place 
for an artist to live in those days—too many hours had to 


[17 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


be occupied with walking down town to the much-fre- 
quented centers of the publishing business. 

As soon as he was settled in his new quarters, he began 
‘to attend the theaters. Good plays had been something of 
a rarity in Wilmington, but in New York the drama was 
moving towards a new importance, and the playhouses were 
taking on the brilliance that characterizes them today. His 
letters home are full of allusions to the various productions 
which he saw—he evidently was greatly impressed with 
the possibilities of the stage. 

He worked regularly either at short stories and fables 
or at the illustrations to go with them, and for a time 
he had little difficulty in getting them accepted. Mary 
Mapes Dodge, who was then the editor of St. Nicholas, 
saw a certain charm in the animal fables which he was con- 
tinually pouring out, and published a number of them. In 
spite of the certainty, however, with which Mr. Smith had 
told Mr. Pyle that Scribner’s would find plenty of work 
for Howard to do, it was not long before very little was 
forthcoming from that magazine. Still, this was no great 
matter to a young man of Howard’s stamp—there were 
plenty of other periodicals. In fact it was probably in the 
end a very lucky occurrence, for it threw him on his own 
initiative and made him fight his own battles. As he him- 
self wrote many years later, “I took him [Mr. Smith] at 
his word and went there expecting to find employment 
with Scribner’s. Fortunately for me, I found that I had 
to make my own way, and that it was not made for me by 
Scribner’s.”* But Mr. Smith himself was most kind and 
sympathetic. He did everything he could in a personal 

* The Scrapbook, in possession of Mrs. Howard Pyle. 


[ 18 ] 


“ ’ 4 ‘ Tid 
S we S \N . hi Up UZ 
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2k é WAS = 
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From 
THE WONDER CLOCK 
Harper’s Round Table, 1886 


Poe CRUCIBLE (OF NEW YORK 


way—criticized manuscripts, gave extremely valuable ad- 
vice, and even offered to get Howard a place in the choir 
of his church. Howard finally refused this last, since he 
was not inclined to accept money for singing in church; 
there seemed to him to be something of hypocrisy in such 
an acceptance. He took advantage, however, of all the 
social opportunities which fell in his way. He made him- 
self acquainted not only at the boarding-house, but also at 
the publishing offices, and soon had a circle of friends whom 
he had met in one place or the other. 

During the early part of his years in New York he wrote 
diary-letters—many of them have been unfortunately lost— 
to his mother, which gave her full accounts of his activities — 
every day. The letters draw such a vivid picture of these 
months that it seems best to quote from them those 
passages which describe his habits, his achievements, and 
his aspirations. 


“New York, 
“November 11, 1876. 
“Worked all day yesterday in my room’at my writing. 
J am trying to finish up that old story of mine without title, 
where Ephraim Marlowe tries to win Kitty Grant. It will 
have to be made over entirely new, and, to tell the truth, 
I feel at present somewhat blue as to the general result. 
Nothing, however, is gained without labour, and if Provi- 
dence intends me to become a writer, it will all come in good 
time and with hard work. I can say one thing at least and 
that is that I am not altogether deficient in ideas. 
“T went down at night to see Dion Boucicault in ‘The 
Shaughraun’ and was immensely entertained. I had al- 


[19] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


ways had the idea that Boucicault was a second- or third-rate 
actor; as Con, however, he is inimitable. Even excelling 
him, however, was Mr. Harry Beckett as Harvey Duff. 
The mean and villainous expression of the man was carried 
out wonderfully well. Where Corry Kinchela, the villain 
of the piece, instigates Harvey Duff to murder, Beckett’s 
by-play is excellently good. The meditative scratching of 
the neck immediately below the left ear, the helpless, stupid 
glare of the eye, express very well the indecision of the 
stupid, ignorant, brute of a man; then as though wrenched 
from him comes the exclamation, ‘Oh! Harvey Duff, ye 
divil! I wish ye were ought of this entirely.’ All the 
parts, in short, were taken with an excellence that Wal- 
lack’s Theatre knows so well how to produce—a dramatic 
feast—fit for the gods. I have always been used to 
seeing one star and the rest of the cast filled with minor 
players. These New York theatres open my eyes some- 
what to the delights of the drama as produced by a stock 
company... . 

“The election is not yet decided but probabilities are so 
much against Hayes, that I don’t think now I would feel 
it very much were he finally declared defeated.” 


“November 12, 1876. 

“Went down town yesterday morning to see Oliver Dyas 
and find out whether I could by some means obtain a pass 
to the theatres. Mr. Dyas said that only the theatrical 
critics were upon the free list, and that others upon the 
newspaper staffs bought such tickets as they needed. He 
advised me to set about making the acquaintance of some 
of the managers, saying that they are good fellows and 


[ 20 ] 


Map iCRUCIBLE OF NEW: YORK 


would doubtless any of them give me the entrée into their 
theatres without the slightest hesitation. It seems a very 
long course to take but I hope it will come about in 
time. 

“The rest of the day I spent in writing, and in the eve- 
ning went down to the Mercantile Library and got Howells’s 
A Foregone Conclusion. It makes me feel blue when I 
read his style and then look at my own poor endeavors; 
the distance is so immeasurable that it makes me heartily 
discouraged. I wonder if the time will ever come when 
I will be able to do work somewhat to my satisfaction— 
I begin to think there’s poor prospect.” 


“November 13, 1876. 

“Yesterday afternoon passed without much note. I had 
intended going to Mr. Smith’s church, Fifty-third Street 
and Fifth Avenue, but leaving it until too late I was com- 
pelled in consequence to attend the Swedenborgian. They 
are all very cordial and pleasant there, and speak to me 
with the utmost friendliness. Mr. Giles preached a won- 
derfully good sermon, fairly convincing, it seemed to me, 
two men directly in front of me, who had evidently come 
in in a skeptical mood, but in the end seemed deeply 
interested. 

“T finished A Foregone Conclusion in the afternoon and 
wrote somewhat upon the manuscript I am engaged on. 
I know it is rather a wild venture, but it is at least excellent 
practice. I shall devote myself hereafter to the endeavor 
for something else beside money, for I see more and more 
clearly now that New York society expects one to give an 
equivalent return for the pleasures it grants. 


[21] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


“So Sunday passed without anything of note. I excused 
myself from attending Sunday school, for really I think 
it best that I should not undertake it until I am fairly 
settled down and feel able to spread my elbows in my new 
life; for such it is.” 


“November 14, 1876. 
“T was at work all day yesterday in my room. Went down 
town in the afternoon returning A Foregone Conclusion 
and taking out in its place Moritz’s Mythology. I shall 
probably complete the rewriting of my new piece today and 
shall then work up a new budget of fables for Sz. 
Nicholas. 2 fas 


“November 15, 1876. 

“I completed the rewriting of that little story yesterday. 
I don’t know how to class it in comparison with my other 
articles but one thing is certain, and that is that I have 
never written anything that has afforded me so much de- 
light and interest in the writing as the last sheets of the 
little piece. I mean no false modesty, for in truth I do 
not doubt but that unbiassed judges would feel amused 
at the manifold crudities; but they haven’t the affectionate 
interest that an author has in his own productions. I worked 
all day from half past eight in the morning and was so 
much interested that I could hardly tear myself away from 
it to go to dinner at half past six; and by half past nine in 
the evening had successfully accomplished that conclusion 
where the villain is finally overcome and the hero shines 
forth with victorious glory. However much of a failure 
it may turn out, however poor in literary qualities it may be, 


[ 22 ] 


THE CRUCIBLE OF NEW YORK 


it 1s with a sigh I close a task that has been, for a brief 
space, so delightful to myself. 

“I shall lay aside such pleasures for a space and resume 
the task, not, however, unpleasant in itself, of writing up 
another budget of fables for Mrs. Dodge. The fables 
and their illustrations pay me not less than sixty dollars— 
the last brought me seventy-five. . . .” 


“November 17, 1876. 

“I went down to Scribner’ yesterday to take my fables 
to Mrs. Dodge. There was, I believe, some little difficulty 
in regard to the blurring of the lines of my illustrations, 
since both the former and Mr. Drake, the Art Editor, sug- 
gested that I should go down and see the Photoengraving 
Company and obtain such suggestions as they might offer. 
I could not attend to it yesterday but shall today. 

“T stopped in at Mr. Smith’s to see if he could refer me 
to someone who would give me severe criticisms on my 
articles before I submitted them to the magazines; for I 
feel more and more acutely as time progresses and I begin 
to know enough to ‘know how little I do know,’ the need 
of severe advice in chopping off needless excrescences. Mr. 
Smith was more than kind. He cordially invited me to come 
up to his house for dinner and read my MS. to him and 
Mrs. Smith afterward, and he said that even were his 
criticisms useless in a literary sense, they would at least 
be frank. ‘I know exactly what you want,’ said he. ‘What 
you desire is a friend. It’s human nature as Christ himself 
has shown when He bade the disciples go forth two-by-two 
to preach His doctrine. You can rely upon one thing 
‘and that is that your articles will always be coddled by 


[ 23 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


Scribner’s and St. Nicholas, and if there is a possibility of 
using them they will be accepted.’ 

“J went up to dinner at half past five but unfortunately . 
leaving my visiting cards at home, I had a desperate race 
around to obtain some more, and at last had to write them 


myself. One might almost as well make a call without 
- shoes and stockings as without visiting cards in New York. 
I was dreadfully afraid I would be late, but arrived just on 
time. Although it was a family dinner, yet they had five 
courses and two desserts, but I got through without drinking 
the water out of the finger bowl, because there wasn’t any 
lemon in it, or cutting the butter with my table knife, 
because they didn’t have any. 

“I didn’t get a chance to read my MS. to them after all, 
however, for Mrs. Smith had made an engagement to attend 
a lecture and had to leave soon after dinner. Mr. Smith 
begged me to leave the MS., however, which I did re- 
luctantly enough, for it was only the rough sheets and 
filled with inaccuracies of writing and spelling, and was 
vilely written in such hieroglyphics that I very much doubt 
their ability to read it. . 

“T had an engagement to visit Mr. Giles at nine o’clock, 
but spent the evening up to that time with Miss Smith, 
who did not go to the lecture, so pleasantly that I was really 
sorry when the time for leaving came. Miss Smith tried 
every argument to induce me to join their church, telling 
me how delightfully social it was and what pleasant and 
elegant people belonged, although not putting it quite so 
plainly as that. Great as the temptation was, however, I 
stood firm and shall mot leave my own church, however 


[ 24 | 


int 





\\ 


From 
THE WONDER CLOCK 
Harper’s Round Table, 1886 





> oe he 
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THE CRUCIBLE OF NEW YORK 


much I might be tempted socially by such a course of 
Bonnets! -) 

“J have not done much in the money-making line this 
week, in fact nothing yet, though I intend to make another 
monkey picture, ‘The Right Watch,’ for Wood, and a 
caricature for Harper’s or some of the comic papers. I have, 
however, written those fables for Mrs. Dodge which will 
probably bring me in something. Altogether, I will not 
net more than twenty dollars. Money seems to be growing 
beautifully less. I do not feel discouraged because I am 
sure that if I chose to devote myself entirely to making 
money I could make twice that much. Upon mature con- 
sideration I have concluded that a name is of inestimably 
more value than money. And I have enough, and more 
than enough, of that latter to keep me comfortably... . ” 


“November 18, 1876. 

«|, . Thee strongly advised me in thy letter to stick to 
illustrating as my particular branch. I think thee is mistaken 
and that by all means a literary life is the proper one for me. 
Thee has not much confidence in my ability as a writer, nor 
have I much in myself, for I have not really turned my at- 
tention to it until within the past six months. But one thing 
I can say and that is that where there are hundreds— 
thousands—of artists who can do infinitely better and more 
creditable work than I can and succeed in their profession 
while the market is overstocked with pictures, I have not 
met anyone as young in years or letters as I am who has 
succeeded better or even as well as I have. I may make 
many failures at first and probably will, but it’s in me and 
shall come out. I have, besides, now, the criticism of those 


[525] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


who, if they are not as good critics as thee, have yet been 
engaged so long upon journalism, that they know what are 
the essential qualities necessary in an article to render it 
popular with the public... . 

“TI went down to the Photoengraving Company yesterday 
and received many valuable hints in regard to pen drawing. 
I have commenced a picture, as much for practice as any- 
thing else, which I am going to submit to Sz. Nicholas if it 
turns out as I hope. It is ‘Queen Mab.’ She is flying 
through a gray evening sky on great dragon-fly wings; in 
front of her isa little elf, seated cross-legged on a bat and 
blowing a horn with all his might and main, and behind 
comes a troop of fantastic little elves with short tails and 
pointed caps. Below is a glooming valley and a glassy 
stream catching the reflection of a streak of lingering sunset. 

In one corner is a flickering new moon, while the top of 
Queen Mab’s wand forms a brilliant star. This is my 
intention if I can only carry it out. One could do a great 
deal if it weren’t for that one word—only.’ ” 


“November 19, 1876. 

“One suffers a great many take-downs in this world; so 
with me. My manuscript of ‘Johan Printz’ has been de- 
clined. I cannot say that I was very much disappointed, 
since I had pretty well concluded upon mature considera- 
tion that it was hardly up to standard. Mr. Gilder said 
that its chief fault was that it was hardly vividly enough 
imagined. He said that another great objection was that 
Henry James had written a ghost story for them, where, 
like mine, the house was burned. 

“J may as well mention here . . . that 1 saw Mr. Smith 


[ 26 | 


Wii CRUCIBLE OF NEW YORK 


in regard to my other manuscript. It was very kind in him 
to offer to criticize it, which he did with great frankness. 
His criticism was much the same as theirs. He said that 
the characters were very well sketched and that it was 
written in a lively manner, but that the characters were 
commonplace and the conversation had nothing distinguished 
about it, but was just such as anyone would use. He said 
he would be very happy to examine any others of mine 
that I might desire to submit to him and was quite interested 
in reading this. . . .” 


“November 20, 1876. 


“It rained all day yesterday, and I, accordingly, stayed in 
my room, reading; having Hume’s History of England on 
hand, I have waded so far successfully through the early 
Britons, the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans up to 
Pec] Of oteplien....” 


“November 21, 1876. 


“Tt rained in a most dismal manner all day yesterday 
and I remained at home working on the ‘Queen Mab’ 
picture. I was not at all satisfied with the result and ac- 
cordingly commenced another which seems to be coming up 
infinitely better. I try to remember my own fable, id est, 
“Hasty completion spoils a work.’ . . . 

“Miss Smith, making an engagement to go out riding 
next Friday morning with a lady friend, very kindly ex- 
tended the invitation to me. The horse, she said, was not 
a very good hack, but he would go. I must say that I am 
rather alarmed at the prospect, when the animal is so 
ambiguously spoken of. Suppose he is one of those in- 
carnate devils one hears of constantly, or a ‘bucker,’ a 


[27] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


‘baulker’ or a ‘bolter.? I should cut rather a pretty spectacle, 
I don’t think, in Central Park if such were the case. I rather 
think, upon the whole, I shall plan a ‘business engagement’ 
on Friday morning at ten o’clock.” 


“November 22, 1876. 

“T received a letter from home yesterday morning telling 
me father was in town and would be at the Merchants’. 
I was working at the ‘Queen Mab’ picture all morning and 
with much better success than the first study I made for it. 
In fact it seems to me I am getting a rather good effect for 
me. I met father at noon and we had quite a pleasant little 
chat together after dinner. He seems quite anxious that 
I should be making money, and reiterated thy good advice 
to stick at drawing. I don’t know whether it is best or not 
but it seems to me to be preferable to throw present pros- 
perity into the great lottery of life, and who knows?—some 
man must draw the prize; at least it seems preferable to try 
for that thousandth chance, bitter as the disappointment at- 
tendant upon failure would be, than ‘to fatten like the 
stall-fed ox’ in present prosperity. Immediately after 
leaving father I returned home and continued paying 
attentions to Queen Mab. 

“Look in the advertisement of Scribner’s Monthly, for 
1877, on one of the first advertising sheets of that periodical 
and among the list of Home Life and Travel and in 
an honorable position, behold ‘An Unknown American 
Island’—that’s me.” 


“November 23, 1876. 


“Queen Mab, the hussy, jilted me at the last moment, 
and turned out to be a worthless creature after all. Should 


[ 28 | 


THE CRUCIBLE OF NEW YORK 


I repine? My pride tells me ‘no,’ so I dismissed the young 
lady for the present by putting her in the portfolio in dis- 
grace, and, having in the meantime received a note from 
Mrs. Dodge accepting all my fables but the ‘Unwise Hen’ 
and the ‘King’s Prime Ministers,’ I went to work designing 
some illustrations. 

“Mrs. Dodge especially requested me to design but one 
of them, but, so far from following her injunctions, I made 
a design of the discontented philosopher (as good a design 
as I have made lately) and two for the Bat, knowing my 
chance of having them accepted. I also wrote another fable 
to make up the half dozen in a budget; and struck in it a 
truer and broader sin of human nature than I have here- 
tofore done, I think. A starving crow begs admission to 
a pigeon cote in the winter time and through compassion 
is admitted. The next year he brings three friends and 
coolly requests to have them quartered for the coming cold 
weather also. The next year he brings a whole flock and, 
turning the poor pigeons out, they take possession them- 
selves. What one asks as a favor in the beginning is only 
too apt to be demanded asa right in the end... . ” 


“November 24, 1876. 

“T took down my fable and illustrations to Mrs. Dodge 
yesterday morning, and, as I hoped, all the designs were 
accepted; she was very much pleased with the last fable. 
She gave me two designs to write for; one of them, two 
little birds fighting, is an illustration I think thee once wrote 
an accompanying story for to the Little Messenger. The 
other is a couple of nondescript birds of the stork species 
running a race. At present my ideas are in rather a chaotic 


[ 29 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


state, but I hope they will in time settle, and the small 
amount of useful common sense will, perhaps, precipitate 
to a tangible mass. 

“Mr. Drake, the Art Editor, said Mr. Smith had been 
speaking to him about me, and wished him to throw every 
opportunity in my way for designing for them. Mr. Drake 
advised me to take a course of hard and thorough study 
from the very rudiments of drawing under a Mr. Wills, 
a German drawing teacher. I by no means incline to going 
through a Van der Weilian course of sprouts again, and 
very much doubt whether I shall undertake it. Mr. Drake 
wishes to see some of my former studies and accordingly 
I shall take down the ‘Venus de Medici’ and the ‘Soldier’s 
Head’ for him to inspect. 

“T stopped in to see Mr. Smith and pleading a dusiness 
engagement sent word that I could not have the pleasure 
of escorting Miss Julia to the Park. It is rather an incon- 
venient time of day, ten o’clock, but I think that that awful, 
uncertain horse had something to do with it. Mr. Smith 
asked me what day would suit me, and said Miss Julia 
would be happy to ride at any time. I avoided the question 
in a cowardly manner by saying that I had better consult 
her about that. 

“T received thy letter in the evening and was very much 
interested. I think Katie is doing wonderfully well but 
don’t tell her I say so, for I think it would be better even 
to speak slightingly of her verses than to praise them un- 
duly. It would be the greatest misfortune to her should 
she once become satisfied with her work. I shall show 
them to Mrs. Dodge and see what she thinks of them, 
for I think they are rather remarkable for a child of 


[ 30 ] 


™ 


> ae 
ame, 


eM Aas 
Br: 





From 
THE WONDER CLOCK 
Harper’s Round Table, 1887 


ot 

¥ iy 
Al at a 
ae te, 





THE CRUCIBLE OF NEW YORK 


her age. Do, by all means, keep her in strict harness, 
though... 

“Says Mr. Drake, the art editor, ‘If you are going to try 
to make an artist sufficiently good to illustrate extensively 
for us, you’ll have to give up society entirely for the present, 
and devote your whole attention to study.? They desire 
young men on their force, and they have one now who is 
illustrating for them, having some designs in the holiday 
St. Nicholas, which will probably be in Wilmington on 
Monday. He has illustrated an article called ‘The Horse 
Hotel’ in a way that has gained him much praise. He is 
an indefatigable worker and puts me to the blush whenever 
Phear.of him.” ... 

“T have been thinking lately that stories from the life of 
Robin Hood might be an interesting thing for Sz. Nicholas. 
Children are very apt to know of Robin Hood without any 
very clear ideas upon his particular adventures. And then 
how gloriously they would illustrate. If thee would lend 
me thy volume of Percy and express it on to me, I would 
take great care of it and would make the attempt. I think, 
if I am not mistaken, that his life is incomplete in that 
work; does thee know any other one work wherein he ap- 
pears in his early history and adventures? 

“T wonder how long it will be that I shall have to crawl 
in writing before I can begin to walk? At times I feel dis- 
couraged and then again the feeling rises strong within me 
that there 4s something in me that will produce, perhaps, 
worthy fruit in time. At present I am trammelled more 
than I can describe with stiffness in manner, crudeness in 


* Edward James Kelly, who began and did considerable work as an illus- 
trator, but who has since turned his attention entirely to sculpture. 


[31] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


style, and self-consciousness (I do not know how else to 
describe it) in thought. The feet of my ideas seem clogged 
with the difficulties of expression; I can’t open the flood 
gates of my mind and pour out my thoughts onto the paper. 
The sentences will not ‘round up’ so as to contain the 
thought in the shell of a few distinctly expressed words. 1 
have to strike again and again with simile and hyperbole 
before I can crack that invisible, intangible wall that sepa- 
rates my internal thought from the perception of others. 
One reason I so enjoy and pleasure in my fables is that 
the thought finds, as it were, a more tangible form, rough 
though it be, and clad in the rude garb of brute life. But 
even in them, easy as that way is of exhibiting some of the 
innumerable variations of human nature, I find in reading 
them over that I have failed in laying my thought clear 
and undimmed by diffuseness of language. It is as though 
the particular thread in the woof of my thoughts broke 
in my fingers as I strive to draw it forth. ... ” 


“November 25, 1876. 

“T worked yesterday morning at correcting the fable 
illustrations for St. Nicholas and took them down town with 
me. I also stopped at Goupil’s and ordered a paper stretcher 
I bought to be sent down to the Academy; it was quite late 
when I got there, so I did no work... . 

“When I called on Mr. Drake, he said that Mr. Smith 
had been speaking about me and urged me again to go down 
to Wills and take lessons under him. I did not, however, 
incline much to that plan. 

“Two of the illustrations of the fables I sent up to Mrs. 


[ 32 | 


THE CRUCIBLE OF NEW YORK 


Dodge as she wished to see them before Mr. Drake put 
them in process. 

“T stopped in the editorial rooms of Scribner’s to see an 
old Dutch painting that they have been having photo- 
graphed. I did not see it, however, as Mr. Gilder had it 
home with him. Mr. Gilder had a long talk with me and 
he advised me to take a course of life study around at the 
Artists’ League, giving me a letter of introduction to a 
young Mr. Church who has his studio on Thirteenth 
Street. He also advised me to join the League, as there 
is a sketch class there where each student poses in turn for 
the benefit of the others. Since two persons’ advice is better 
than one, I shall most probably take adyantage of Messrs. 
Gilder’s and Church’s, and join the League, albeit not an 
inexpensive operation. 

“T have been thinking lately of taking a studio down town 
if I could get one in conjunction with some other young 
artist, so lessening the expense. I have no opportunity at 
home for models, etc., comprising all those thousand little 
surroundings that go so far toward rendering work more 
easy and speedy. One cannot improve without study from 
models and nature, as all the good artists here do; and 
making pictures means making bread and butter to me for 
Severiice. .. |” 


“November 28, 1876. 
“I was at work today making some comic illustrations, 
as I want to make some money between now and Christmas. 
The first was called ‘Bliss’; it represents a diminutive gamin 
with his head buried under the sunbonnet of as diminutive 
a little girl. The second was entitled ‘The Spirit is Willing 


[ 33 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


but the Flesh is Weak’—‘Lemme carry your baggage, Mis- 
ter,’ says a very small boy to a gentleman with a very large 
valise. I did not take them down to Mr. Drake, because 
it was raining and snowing, besides being rather late. 

“T paid a visit to the Art Students’ League in the eve- 
ning. Snowing as it was, there was quite a class assembled, 
sketching a temporary pose assumed by a young lady. This 
class is held every evening and would be very useful indeed, 
I should think. One of the students poses every evening 
for a half hour. They wished me to begin with my studies 
last night; as I had nothing ready, however, I postponed 
joining until next Monday. It will cost me about fifteen 
dollars, Issuspéct.. aa 


“November 29, 1876. 

«¢ | . . Having drawn two designs I took them down to 
Scribners’, who took one of them; the other I left at 
Harpers’ to be reported upon the following day. Scribners 
desired my monkey picture which I dispensed to them for 
only ten dollars, two dollars less than Wood gave me. Still, 
as Wood changes the titles of my others so as to make them 
rather vulgar, I was very willing that Scribners should have 
it even at this reduction... 

“T entered the life class at the Art Students’ League, 
and as I had not an entire ‘pose’ to work on, I concluded to 
make only a pencil sketch. Mr. Wilmot, the teacher, said 
my ‘Venus’ was poor but that I might as well join the life 
and see what I could do. I feel that my drawing far sur- 
passes what it used to be in the Van der Weilian days, and 
that the pencil study I have begun does me credit for so 
raw a beginner... . 


[ 34 ] 


THE CRUCIBLE OF NEW YORK 


“What do you home folks think about this election now? 
I declare I feel fairly sick and ashamed of both parties, and 
hardly know which is the worse. On the Republican party 
is such a net of cheating, chicanery, meanness, usurpation, 
and dishonesty, as almost to hide its former nobility. I 
really think they are doing more harm to themselves by the 
underhand dishonesty of their operations, than twice four 
years can repair. As for the Democrats: they are, it seems 
to me, scarcely if any less to blame than the others—vio- 
lence, half-uttered threats of warfare and demoralization 
among their lower classes—still, I do believe they show 
more forbearance and better obeyance to the laws of the 
Commonwealth than the Republicans, who prate so much 
of their patriotism, and show their patriotism by forcing, 
willy-nilly, upon South Carolina, a governor its people 
don’t want, and a man stained with fraud. I’m sick of the 
whole thing.” 


“November 30, 1876. 


“T finished writing the fable and story for Mrs. Dodge’s 
two woodcuts and took them down this morning to the office. 
They paid me for my former two budgets of fables, com- 
prising thirteen in all; for which they gave me thirty 
dollars!—a little less than two dollars and a half for each 
fable. I was far from satisfied at this as thee may well 
imagine, but I had to swallow it as best I could and digest 
the hard case in my own inner consciousness. They rather 
have me. There is no other child’s magazine of any worth 
in the country and my writings are essentially for children. 
I try to make them as witty as I can, and at the same time 
indoctrinate a small lesson. I strive to hold the lesson in 


[35] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


view and throw in the wit as an accessory. Perhaps if I do 
the best I can in this way it may bear fruit at some time; 
but dear only knows! it does seem as though it would 
be slow work. We shall see what people say when my 
little writings make their appearance .. . 

“Harpers did not accept the illustration submitted to 
them, so that makes three I now have upon my hands.” 


“December 2, 1876. 

“| | Lattended the life class last night and finished my 
pencil sketch from life. Mr. Wilmot said it was in some 
respects a very nicely conceived piece; the action was stiff 
and some parts were out of proportion, but the arms were 
very good. I, myself, however, am not at all satisfied with 
it and hope to do better next time. It is pretty good pencil 
work for me, however, and I want to show it to Mr. Drake 
to see if it won’t refute his opinion of the need of rudiments 
on my part.” 


“December 4, 1876. 

“T did not go to church yesterday as I felt too intolerably 
lazy. This is the first time I have missed, but I don’t think 
it will be the last. Still, I don’t want to drift back to my 
old-time habits. 

“T read the Comic History and lolled about all day just 
exactly as I used to do at home, except that I have no easy 
chair here—more’s the pity. In the evening I drew a pen- 
and-ink sketch for a subject that was given out for composi- 
tion at the Art League. It was ‘Despair,’ which I illustrated 
by representing an old lawyer who had just upset the ink 
on his desk papers. It is one of the best, if not she best, 
I have ever done, quickly as it was made... . ” 


[ 36 | 


THE CRUCIBLE OF NEW YORK 


“December: 5; 18:76. 

“I had an idea for a political cartoon, which though as 
a general rule very hard to sell, I concluded to make and 
see if I could dispose of it. It is to be called the ‘Present 
Political Aspect in the South,’ and represents two wolves 
fighting over the figure of a prostrate woman... . 

“At four o’clock I went down to the Sketch Club, taking 
my picture of ‘Despair’ along. It was a complete success. 
The folk were very expressive of their approbation. Mr. 
Church said were I to make a watercolor study of it, I could 
sell it without doubt; and said further that it was pen- 
handled in a very masterful manner. Afterward in the life 
class the students were very much interested and pleased 
with it. This praise has commenced to set me thinking. 
Would it be possible that I might make a success in Art? If 
I concluded to devote myself to that there wouldn’t be so 
much present money-making in it, but opulence in future, 
should I succeed. If I begin to take up with that vocation, 
I should have to have a studio. Indeed, I feel the need of 
it more and more. All the artists who illustrate for maga- 
zines here work from models, and in that lies their superi- 
ority over artists in other cities; but I have no place to study 
from models. Then, in case I turn my attention to art 
proper, I shall have to resume my painting studies from 
nature in the day class at the Art League. Some artists 
here do work day and night and make a living by illustrating 
beside. So why shouldn’t I do the same? I shall think 
seriously of it in future. 

“After Sketch Class was over, a boy, Joe Evans by name, 
came to me and invited me to come around to a sketch 
class held at his house on Madison Avenue every Saturday 


[374 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


morning. He said, ‘We have plenty of ladies attending but 
we want more gentlemen. Of course, I wouldn’t ask every- 
one for, as I said, we want gentlemen.’ I should like very 
much to go, as some of the ladies seem very pleasant, and 
one in particular struck me as being extremely pretty; still, 
I hardly think I can find the time... . ” 


“December 6, 1876. 


“Yesterday morning I completed the redrawing of my 
political picture; it came up better than I expected, and in- 
deed I think was quite creditable for me. Unfortunately, 
however, I did not dispose of it. I took it to the Graphic 
first, but they have a political cartoonist who works for them. 
Harpers I knew would not take it, for they are too radical; 
in consequence, I took it to Frank Leslie’s. They seemed 
to like it very much there, but said they did not usually 
take allegorical pictures; still, they told me to leave it until 
Mr. Leslie himself could see it the following day. .. . 

“The Artists’ League gave a reception last evening and 
it was quite a success. Around the walls were hung the 
studies and pictures of the students, making quite a credit- 
able show. . . . I was introduced to the vice-president, a 
very pleasant lady indeed. She complimented me quite 
highly on my design for ‘Despair.’ : 

“There is one young man who attends the Art League 
whose acquaintance I should like to cultivate. His name is 
Inness and he is son to Inness, the prominent landscape 
painter. He is a Swedenborgian, so that is a kind of bond 
of brotherhood. He is an elegant, handsome fellow with 
clear-cut features and dark hair... . ” 


[ 38 ] 





From 
THE WONDER CLOCK 
Harper's Round Table, 1887 





THE CRUCIBLE OF NEW YORK 





“December 8, 1876. 
. . - [he fable and comic story which I wrote for Mrs. 
Dodge’s two illustrations were accepted ‘with thanks” .. . 
I should like to write a story for Scribner’s before Christ- 
mas and have been for the last twenty-four hours raking 
over the pile of my ideas in search of some stray rem- 
nant—so far without success. . 

“Frank Leslie did not accept my cartoon, but I was not 
much disappointed thereat. Frank Leslie shows very poor 
taste; that’s all I’ve got to say. ... 

“T haven’t been doing superbly at the life class as yet, the 
outline of my figure being severely criticized by Professor 
Wilmot who said it was poor; I rubbed it out and began all 
over again, with, this time, better success, I think.” 


« 


“December 11, 1876. 

“Yesterday passed as Sundays usually do. I went to 
church in the morning and ‘loafed’ all afternoon. The day 
was intensely cold and I very nearly froze in going to 
church. I don’t believe it pays to be good under ali 
circumstances. 

“A young lady accosted me there, whom I was probably 
introduced to once upon a time, but have since utterly for- 
gotten her name. We carried on quite a spirited conversa- 
tion in which I constantly addressed her as ‘Miss Ah’—or 
‘Miss Um.’ I cannot imagine what caused me to forget her 
name, for she is by no means ill-favored. She asked me 
quite anxiously why I had not attended the last two church 
meetings on Wednesday evening; she then asked me if 
I had many friends here. I told her that although I had a 
reasonable amount they were not so thick as blackberries in 


[ 39 ] 


HOWARD PYLE? WASGORONICLE 


summer; she then very kindly invited me to call upon her 
at No. 100 East Thirty-second Street, and to conclude our 
conversation I said I should be most happy. 

“JT had hoped to meet young Mr. Inness there but failed 
in my object as he did not come. As I said before, I should 
like to cultivate his acquaintance though the opportunities 
are not very promising. He attends life class in the morn- 
ing instead of evening and rarely comes to the Sketch Club. 

“T begin to fear that the life class isn’t doing me very 
much good and as it costs me ten dollars per month, I might 
as well invest that much in having a studio which would do 
me a vast deal more good.” 


“December 12, 1876. 

«¢... Mr. Drake liked my design for ‘Despair’ very 
much. He said my pen-and-ink work was improving, as, 
indeed, I feel that it is. I am far, very far, behind others 
yet, though. I should like, if I get a studio, to make a 
finished pen-and-ink picture for the next Academy Exhibi- 
tion, some single figure that would not be beyond my scope. 
That sounds conceited, but there is nothing gained without 
an effort, and who knows but that I might make a lucky 
hit? At least there would be no harm in trying... . 

“T am not attending the Academy any longer because 
I don’t think it was doing me any good. There were no 
professors there and the students had to go on their own 
hook, so to speak... . 

“Last week the work was not so very slim, and thee 
needn’t think that I am getting into a state of hopeless 
poverty because I don’t tell thee every cent I make. So 


[ 40 | 


THE CRUCIBLE OF NEW YORK 


rest thy mind easy—when I am pushed for money, you'll 
hear quickly enough of it... . ” 
“December 14, 1876. 

“, . . Lam suffering from a spell of the blues. I have 
met with constant disappointment this week, and am be- 
ginning to get scared with this way of going on. If it con- 
tinues, I shall not be able to make expenses. I am meeting 
my first reverses now, and they taste very bitter. If I 
should fail now, wouldn’t it be a humiliating come-down?” 


“December 15, 1876. 


“Still more reverses, and worse than before! I went 
down to see Mrs. Dodge yesterday morning to find out 
whether she had accepted my fairy tale or not. For- 
tunately I did not receive an answer to that in this unlucky 
time. . . . But what worried me was the complaint that was 
made of my drawings for the fables; and they certainly 
do not look well in print. They seem coarse and cheap 
looking, more so than in the original drawings, for upon 
being reduced they blotted and came up black and heavy 
looking. 

“Mrs. Dodge complained very much, and although she 
did not blame, but rather exculpated me, that does not better 
my chances of illustrating for St. Nicholas in the future. 
‘I am getting tired of these cheap looking actinics. People 
are beginning to complain about them, and we shall have 
to use more wood engravings. Some of the ten pictures are 
good enough, but many of them are cheap and coarse.’ 
This seemed to hint that my designs were of that order; 
and, indeed, I must confess that there are entirely too many 
grounds for the supposition. Should Sz. Nicholas cast me 


[ 41 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


off, I should be at sea indeed, for now that magazine 1s my 
chief support. . . . I do hope that Mrs. Dodge isn’t dis- 
gusted with me and my designs im toto. If she refuses the 
fairy tale, I’m done for, for I place great dependence 
upon that and would be grievously disappointed, should 
it be refused. 

“This was my first rebuff. Next—Harpers declined 
my design for ‘Despair.’ It was very clever but they could 
not use it. Another small design that I had submitted at 
the same time was too ‘loud’ for them or in other words 
was likely to be accused of coarseness. 

“T then took them to Frank Leslie. The ‘loud’ was 
not too loud for him and he took it... . 

“This much for my diary this week. It is short and not 
over sweet. In fact, it combines with its smallness all the 
bitterness of a quinine pill; and may it be beneficial in re- 
moving all unhealthy humours of conceit and self-satisfac- 
tion. Still, I do hope that affairs will look brighter by 
Christmas time, and that present reverses will prove only 
a salutary check on a course of life that was proving too 
prosperous. I can tell you, in the last two weeks my ex- 
penses have been less than heretofore; and after all, I have 
quite a sum laid by. One doesn’t like to have a nasty little 
cankering trouble gnawing one about Christmas time, so, as 
I say, I hope my luck will change. 

“I shall try some illustrations for St. Valentine’s Day, 
next week. I have not any very clear ideas on the subject 
as yet, though I should like to make a silhouette for Sv. 
Nicholas and a pen-and-ink design for Harper’s. I don’t 
recollect anywhere that Shakespeare speaks of St. Valentine’s 

[ 42 ] 


THE CRUCIBLE OF NEW YORK 


Day except in ‘Hamlet’ where Ophelia first goes crazy, and 
that is hardly admissible for illustration. . . . 

“To sum up: I am not yet bankrupt; I am improving 
in drawing; I yet have ideas and pen and ink; and having 
received a salutary check, let us hope that I may remove 
the taint of vulgarity that affects my work,... ” 


[ 43 ] 


CHAPTER III 


FRUITFUL ASSOCIATIONS 


HE depression which marks the closing paragraphs 

of the diary-letters was not easily dispersed. The 
Christmas season came and went, and still it was difh- 
cult to get the magazines to accept anything. The truth of 
the matter was that St. Nicholas was overstocked, the editors 
had on hand enough of the fables to last them for many 
months, since it was not editorial policy to publish too many 
at once. Consequently there was nothing else for Howard 
to do but devote himself to some different line of work. 
This he did, and in so doing he turned away from Scribner's 
and worked almost entirely for the Harper publications. 

In the months that followed, the old mental struggle, 
which was so frequently mentioned in the diary-letters, 
went on—whether it was better to continue looking to litera- 
ture as the goal of these apprentice years, or whether art was 
the more fitting choice. Both his father and mother—and 
his mother’s advice always carried particular weight—ap- 
proved of the artistic career. Church thought he had con- 
siderable talent, and even Mr. Drake admitted that his 
drawing was improving. Finally, but not without severe 
internal questionings and many delays, he decided that his 
abilities led him more naturally towards art. With this 
change in ambition it became necessary, of course, to have 
a studio where he could work from models, where he would 


[ 44. ] 


PRUITEFUL. ASSOCIATIONS 


not be impeded by the thousand little inconveniences of a 
boarding-house. Accordingly, in conjunction with two other 
young men, Durand and LeGendre, he rented a regular 
studio which was more conveniently located than the Forty- 
eighth Street room. Here he worked on picture after 
picture, gradually building up a method of attack which was 
entirely his own. His ideas were good and he had plenty 
of them. 

MiteeChaties Parsons, the art editor for Harper & 
Brothers, had gathered around him and trained a most re- 
markable group of young illustrators, among whom were 
Abbey, Frost, and Reinhart, and with these young men he 
was building up the pictorial side of his magazines to a 
point which had never before been reached in this country. 
To him Howard would take his sketches, and since the ideas 
were very often good, Mr. Parsons would accept them, but 
since in his opinion the technical work did not come up to 
the standard, he would have one of his staff artists redraw 
the picture on wood. This was, of course, very humiliating 
to the young man whose fertile brain had devised the idea. 
His friend Church, the man who was later to do some of 
the charming pictures for Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle 
Remus, was continually saying that it was poor policy to 
drag other people’s trains in the way in which young Pyle 
was doing. The matter rankled, and finally he aroused 
sufficient courage to ask Mr. Parsons for a chance to try his 
own hand at it. He tells the story himself: 

“T took one day to Harper’s an idea sketch which I had 
called ‘A Wreck in the Offing.’? It represented an alarm 
brought into the Life Saving Station, a man bursting open 
the door, with the cold rain and snow rushing in after him, 


[45 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


and shouting and pointing out into the darkness, the others 
rising from the table where they were sitting at a game 
of cards. 

“J begged Mr. Parsons to allow me to make the picture 
instead of handing it over to Mr. Abbey or to Mr. Reinhart 
or Mr. Frost, or to some other of the young Olympians to 
elaborate into a real picture. With some hesitating re- 
luctance he told me that I might try, and that, in the event 
of my failure, Harpers would pay me ten dollars, I think 
it was, or fifteen for the idea. I believe I worked upon it 
somewhat over six weeks, and I might indeed have been 
working upon it today (finding it impossible to satisty my- 
self with it) had I not, what with the cost of my models 
and the expense of living in New York, reduced myself to 
my last five-cent piece in the world. Then it was that my - 
fate or my poverty, or whatever you may choose to call 
it, forced me to take the drawing down to Harper’s instead 
of drawing it over as I should have liked to have done. 

“JT think it was not until I stood in the awful presence 
of the art editor himself that I realized how this might be 
the turning point in my life—that I realized how great 
was to be the result of his decision on my future endeavor. 
I think I have never since passed such a moment of intense 
trepidation—a moment of such confused and terrible blend- 
ing of hope and despair at the same time. I can recall 
just how the art editor looked at me over his spectacles, and 
to my perturbed mind it seemed that he was weighing in 
his mind (for he was a very tender man) how best he might 
break the news to me of my unsuccess. The rebound was 
almost too great when he told me that Mr. Harper had 
liked the drawing very much and that they were going to 


[ 46 | 










































































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OF THE STATION 


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FRUITFUL ASSOCIATIONS 


use it in the Weekly. But when he said that they were 
not only going to use it, but were going to make of it a 
double-page cut, my exaltation was so great that it seemed 
to me that I knew not where I was standing or what had 
happened to me. As I went away I walked upon air—I 
seemed to float. I found a friend and I took him to Del- 
monico’s, and we had lunch of all the delicacies in season 
and out of season... . 

“My drawing was very much liked in the Department 
and brought me the friendship and acquaintance of all those 
young Olympians whom before I had regarded only from 
the marsh of my unsuccess. I met them and I knew them 
and we consorted together for the two or three years that 
I remained in New York... . ”? 

This was late in 1877, and from that time everything 
moved more pleasantly. Harper & Brothers were well 
pleased with his work, he was associating with the people 
who most interested him, and he was slowly but none the 
less surely building up an excellent reputation. Some of 
his later letters to his mother best show the difference be- 
tween these times and the hard months that had preceded 
them: 


“New York, 
, “February 28, 1878. 
“Dear Mother: 

“I hope your patience has not entirely given out at my 
somewhat lengthened delay in writing. I will not attempt 
to offer any excuse as I deserve none but will simply throw 
myself at your mercy with the promise of doing or trying to 
do better in future. You know that I would rather write 


* Letter to Forrest Crissey, October 21, 1896. 


[ 47] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


to ‘home folk’ than any other in the world but yet I do 
so abominate letter-writing that I shirk in the most blam- 
able manner a semi-duty which I owe to you. My eyes 
have been so bad of late that I have not been able to read, 
write, or do anything else in the evenings. .. . 

“J was vastly enlightened, oh! my mother, at your criti- 
cism of the proof. You did not seem in the least impressed 
by the awful grandeur of being the recipient of a ‘Harper’s 
block proof,’ but quietly absorbed it and proceeded to criti- 
cize. Well, I am only sorry that it would be useless to 
submit aforesaid criticisms to Mr. Parsons as they can’t 
very well correct the expression of the face without doing 
another block over again, and there isn’t time for that, as 
it is coming out this week. I will send you on a proof of 
my Indian picture, so you can see how an engraver can 
knock spots out of a thing, and make allowances for my 
poor work accordingly. I shall probably send you a proof 
of my ‘Carnival in Philadelphia’—during General Howe’s 
possession of that city. | 

‘Work is beginning to roll in upon me at last, and at last 
I think I have ‘struck pan.2 My work is beginning to pay 
better too and I think before long I shall be able to pay off 
my debts to father iv toto. I have just finished a picture 
for Harpers Monthly of an old darky giving a lecture to 
a naughty little girl. It was quite a success and they are 
going to put it into the hands of the best engraver in New 
York City, Mr. Smithwick. They gave me two pictures 
to do for them in illustration to a most excellent story of 
modern Spanish life. They are beyond all comparison the 
best things I have ever done. I don’t think I am as a gen- 
eral rule inclined to be ‘cock almighty’ about my work but 


[ 48 ] 


FRUITFUL ASSOCIATIONS 


for these two designs I can say that they are so far beyond 
anything I have ever done before that I can hardly realize 
their being my own work. They are not finished yet, but 
so far every touch I have put on them has improved them. 

“The first one represents a Spanish caballero standing 
against the side of a bridge looking after his Dulcinea whom 
he has mortally offended by a lampoon written in a fit of 
jealousy. She is ‘soaring’ past him with a scornful ex- 
pression on her face and he is looking after her in a be- 
seeching way. ‘The scene is early morning and I think 
I have gotten a real feeling of early sunlight in the picture. 
I borrowed a Spanish cloak from an artist friend of mine 
that almost entirely covers the modern European dress and 
which with the addition of a sombrero gives him quite a 
picturesque look. I hired a Spanish woman’s costume in 
which I posed my female model Jenny Watts, a very pretty 
ladylike girl, and I tell you, she cut quite a shine! 

“The story goes on to say that after having thus mortally 
offended his sweetheart and being for some time unable to 
regain her love the cavalier finally succeeds by sending her 
a casket. In the casket was the pen with which he had 
written, broken; under the pen, a sheet of paper where was 
written in his blood ‘Retribution,’ and under the paper his 
right hand. This, of course, ‘dropped’ the girl. A very 
effective dénouement, I think. The scene I took for illus- 
tration was when she is just opening the box, or rather, had 
just opened it, the horror not yet fully dawned upon her 
mind. This was Mr. Alden’s suggestion. And I have 
made an illustration that some of my artist friends say shows 
not only talent but genius—I only hope it isso. Mr. Abbey 

[49 ] 


HOWARD PYLE; A CHRONICLE 


says it is one of the best things that have been done in New 
York illustrating. 

“But enough of myself, for no doubt you are somewhat 
anxious to know what Messrs. Parsons, Alden, Abbey, and 
Conare slike: 

“Well, let us begin with Mr. Parsons, as he is at present 
my mainstay in New York. He is distinctly American in 
appearance; not the lanky, cadaverous American cast though. 
He has a bald forehead, and gray hair which he brushes 
back, a gray beard, and wears glasses. He is like a certain 
class of Americans whom one meets every day, but I just 
can’t think of any particular one just now. He is kind, 
cordial, and in every way encouraging; praises my work 
and tells me to go ahead and I’m sure to win. He 1s a 
gentleman, and a gentleman of refined tastes. 

“Mr. Drake of Scribner’s, on the other hand, is almost 
the antitype of Mr. Parsons. He is a very youngish man of 
about thirty-five or forty, but as bald as a bat, with the ex- 
ception of a few thin scraggly hairs about the nape of his 
neck. His head looks like an egg, and sits with a sort of 
pendulous ease on a skinny neck. He has a thin, scraggly 
beard and moustache. He has a habit of dropping his lower 
jaw and scratching the beard on his chin in a vague uncer- 
tain manner. Yet, in spite of this vagueness and uncer- 
tainty, he always manages to get things cheaper than what 
the artists ask for them. Abbey tells a very characteristic 
story, which, whether it is true or not, applies very patly 
to Mr. Drake. 

“A poor devil of an artist brings a picture to him. 

“Drake: How much shall I give you for this? 

“<P, D. of an A.: Twenty dollars. 


[ 50 ] 


FRUITFUL ASSOCIATIONS 


““D.: Well—now—I think that is too much. I'll give 
you eighteen. 

““P. D. of an A.: Oh yes; I made a mistake; it was 
eighteen. 

““D.: Well, Dll give you fifteen.’ 

“Mr. Alden, the Editor of Harpers Monthly, is in my 
eyes, a strikingly handsome man of about fifty. He has an 
unkempt look though, his hair and beard are shaggy and 
look constantly tousled. He has very regular features 
and brown eyes deep set under rather heavy brows. He, 
too, has an absent-minded manner, but not a weak manner 
like Mr. Drake. He speaks very little, and when he does 
talk he contorts his face as though the act of talking was 
a painful labor and effort with him. But he, too, is very 
encouraging and kind. Last time I was down there he 
rather surprised me by coming into the art rooms and joining 
Mr. Parsons in talking with me for nearly half an hour 
about American art and artists and what not. Rather a com- 
plimentary thing for a poor devil of an artist like me. 

“Mr. Abbey is a little man about twenty-six years old. 
He is a comical little fellow, but quite the gentleman; he 
wears glasses, and being troubled with dyspepsia, vos a 
habit of grinning in rather a ferocious manner. 

“We have picked up another friend in our building here, 
Mr. Marble, a tall, good-looking, blue-eyed fellow with a 
short, thick, blond beard. He is a good-hearted, good- 
natured fellow with considerable talent. He came over to 
our rooms here from the rear building and made a water- 
color sketch of Jenny when she posed for the first design 
in my Spanish story. 

“The other artists in his part of the building are a dis- 


[51 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


solute set, and dissolute in a low, vulgar, squalid way that 
you don’t often find out of New York—thank Heaven! 
very rarely there. Three of them occupy our old room 
and carry on in a way that evokes expressions of disgust 
even from Sheahan, the Irish sculptor, of whom I spoke 
to you when home last Christmas. 

“Talking of Sheahan, by the bye, he came over to our 
room not long since to borrow some ‘tobaccy.? We induced 
the unsuspecting victim to take a social smoke with us and 
gave him in an offhand way a huge German pipe, filling it 
with the strongest tobacco. The effect was that in about 
thirty minutes he was just about the sickest Irishman on 
this side of the Atlantic. He’s never been over to borrow 
‘tobaccy’ since. 

“But here I have been rambling on too long. I won’t 
inflict you any longer, but will mercifully bring it to a 
close. Otherwise, it would not be dutiful in 

“Your affectionate son, 
“FIOWARD.” 


“New York, 
“November 3, 1878. 
“Dear Mother: 

“Once more I protest seriously and earnestly you must 
write to me so that I can receive your letters before Sunday, 
if you have any wish for a weekly letter. This time your 
letter did not arrive until last Tuesday, and consequently 
the Sunday was skipped without my usual interesting epistle 
being written. Believe me, I am anxious to write, more 
anxious, I am afraid, than you are to receive my letters, but 


[ 52 | 


FRUITFUL ASSOCIATIONS 


I cannot, I must not spoil you by writing two to your one. 
So much for my protest. I have duly filed it, so there the 
matter may rest. So now for other fields and pastures new. 

“If I had decided to take the large room in the Uni- 
versity Building I spoke of, your admonitory letter would 
have arrived too late to prevent the catastrophe; but al- 
though I duly acknowledge the coin of a certain unwisdom 
and a going heart and heels into thoughtless expense (a 
sign of true genius, believe me) I was not quite so shiftless 
as to enter into such an expensive venture. The four hun- 
dred dollars I might have struggled through, but not with 
the ambition of furnishing such a room, of paying for the 
amount of coal necessary for heating it, and janitors’ fees 
of six dollars a month extra, so I firmly turned my back 
on the tempting object and took a more modest studio. I 
am now settled at Room 31, No. 788 Broadway—788 is 
at the corner of Tenth and Broadway. I have looked all 
over New York and have seen all the studios that are to be 
seen and am sure that I have one of the nicest, pleasantest 
rooms in the city. It has a fine north light and two side 
lights looking out on Broadway. It is only two blocks above 
Scribners’ office and I can now go down to Harpers’ and 
return in half an hour, instead of its taking me a half day 
to complete the journey and its business as formerly. There 
is steam heat in the room and running water and altogether 
it is very satisfactory. The rent asked for it last year was 
thirty-five dollars a month. I have got it for twenty-three, 
and an allowance for fixing it up, calcimining the walls, 
1S ae 

“T am not yet done with my ills. for the Penimsular 


[ 53 ] 


HOWARD PYLE2 ACH RONICLE 


Canaan,: but have now only two more illustrations to do, 
and behind them the vague and open future with dear only 
knows what coming. Possibly job work in the line of writing 
more fables and doing more pen-and-inks for Scribner’s and 
St. Nicholas. Well, well, it’s no use borrowing trouble, 
is It? 

“Flowever, I have one more prospect. Mr. Parsons was 
speaking to me about doing a double page Christmas piece 
for the Weekly. I have thought of a subject—‘Christmas 
Morning in Old New York’—by ‘old New York’ I mean 
just preceding the Revolution. I intended in this bringing 
in a scene in the old part of the town, Chatham Street, or 
the old Dutch Church, or some other such well-known point. 
An early winter’s morning, snow on the ground, various. 
groups of figures of separate interest: two old cronies shak- 
ing hands and exchanging the compliments of the season; 
a couple—an old lady and gentleman, perhaps—exchanging 
pinches of snuff; a miserable blind beggar on the curb with 
his begging dog, and on his breast a placard ‘A Merry 
Christmas’; a paterfamilias and his family discussing a 
sign: 

BOWERIE THEATRE 
HARLEQUINADE 
FROM 
MR. GARRICK’S THEATRE 
DRURY LANE; 


a young widow, poor and humble, bartering for a lean 
turkey with a poultry dealer; two smart young officers 


*An article describing life and customs in Maryland, Delaware, and 
Virginia, published in Harper's Monthly. 


[ 54 | 


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FRUITFUL ASSOCIATIONS 


eyeing her as they pass along the street; sedan-chairs, and 
men in overcoats bearing them, winding on their way to 
the Old Dutch Church; two gentlemen firmly discussing 
the Stamp Act as they pass along in front of the Stamp 
Office; accessories of Christmas gifts exhibited in the old- 
fashioned stores, and so forth. Mr. Parsons took to the 
notion very kindly; said he thought it would make an ex- 
cellent subject, and one that Mr. Harper would like to 
have, etc. I told him that F should not like to undertake 
it under a hundred and twenty-five dollars. He hemmed 
and hawed, but intimated that it might pass at that. It 1s 
a pretty big subject to undertake, but it is one that I would 
thoroughly enjoy doing. So much for myself, and now 
to other and more general topics. . . . 

“The composition class at the League still occupies much 
of my attention. The subject last week was ‘Zekle’s Court- 
ship.’ I did not make a composition myself, however, as 
I was quite busy last week working on a design ‘The Interior 
of a Fishing Shanty,’ which took me all week, cost me some- | 
thing for models, and at which I did not make a princely 
fortune. Mr. Parsons liked it, however, and that was some 
satisfaction. But to return to the composition class, Abbey 
made a stunning composition for me. It was almost too 
masterly to be appreciated by such students as hadn’t un- 
dertaken such a thing themselves, but we advanced students 
rather appreciated it. 

“Speaking of Abbey, he is about to start for England, 
Harper’s sending him. I shall miss him dreadfully for 
I like him very much. He has one of those pleasant faces 
that always make a man feel the better for looking at them. 
And then he is such a chipper, jocund little fellow, with 


[55] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


a merry twinkle of his eyes and a laugh that means busi- 
ness. His very eyeglasses have a certain humorous charac- 
ter of their own. As for his going to Europe, I only wish 
Harpers would send me—to Antwerp. Yes, Antwerp or 
Brussels is my latest fad. 

“IT went over to Brooklyn with Abbey the other evening 
to visit his relatives there and take tea with them. They 
are nice, very nice. Mrs. Curtiss, his cousin, is a handsome, 
refined-looking lady of about thirty; Mr. Curtiss is a mid- 
dle-aged man with white hair, very gentlemanly looking; 
Mrs. Curtiss’s father, mother, and brother live with them. 
They seem to think the world and all of Abbey, Ed as 
they call him, and mourn in a half joking way about his 
going, telling him how homesick he will be, as he probably 
will. I passed a very pleasant evening indeed and much 
to my surprise seemed to take immensely with them. Mr. 
and Mrs. Curtiss were exceedingly hospitable, and walked 
all the way down to the ferry with me, begging me to call 
again. As I left them, Mrs. Curtiss said, ‘We are going 
to talk about you all the way home, Mr. Pyle, and you 
needn’t be afraid of what we are going to say, either.’ 
Abbey is very anxious for me to go to England with him; 
I only wish I could. 

“After the composition class at the League, Chase, the 
brag American artist who gained so many honors abroad, 
a very enthusiastic and interesting man, Shirlaw, Reinhart, 
Church, yours affectionately, and one or two others paraded 
around to a hotel, there to imbibe the draught that cheers 
but not inebriates, yclept beer—real Munich Lager Beer! 
Then the subject of raising a Kneipe or Art Students’ Club 
arose. ‘You want bare walls, sir,’ said Chase with a snap 


[ 56 | 


FRUITFUL ASSOCIATIONS 


of his eyes and a bounce in his chair, ‘bare walls, sir, and 
decorate ’em yourself? This was addressed not to any 
special individual, understand, but to the crowd in general. 
“Yes sir! you want to decorate °em with cartoons, stunning 
you know. Big cartoons and paintings, “Fall of Satan,” 
a Blaze of Light, you know, Blackness below, immense— 
historical pictures and so forth—stunning!’ 

“<Yes, says Reinhart, ‘you want old furniture, open 
fireplaces, andirons, claw-foot tables, and so forth; none 
of your veneered stuff, but everything artistic.’ 

“¢<Yes,? puts in practical Church, ‘and a dumb waiter to 
send up beer and Welch rabbits from a beer saloon below, 
for there must be a beer saloon below.’ 

“‘<And we can sit around the fire and tell stories,’ says 
Reinhart. 

“<Yes, stunning,’ says Chase, holding up his fingers; 
‘I’ve thought of lots of ’°em—four—five—just while you 
were talking.’ 

“And so Messrs. Pyle, Mitchell, and Zaugbaum were ap- 
pointed to select the room—above a beer saloon. Mitchell 
and Zaugbaum are very much of gentlemen but not much 
of artists. The affair as it stands now consists of a luncheon 
on my part with them. I left them to return to my work 
while they went in search of the room... . 

“There is a dearth of male models here in New York; 
indeed last week I went on the warpath; finally I came 
to an Intelligence Office, though apparently from the looks 
of the loungers around, there wasn’t much of that article to 
be gained there. However, I asked them if they wanted 
a job. I was at once assailed by a chorus of ‘Yes sir!? ‘Yes 
sir!? ‘Take me!? You would have thought I had a political 


[57] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


office at my command. However, I escaped with my life 
and whole clothes and a victim, whom I immediately trans- 
ported to my studio and posed him at once, posed him until 
the sweat beaded his brow and he complained of feeling 
‘jest a wee bit tired, sorr!? 

“But by Jove, I really must stop; I must have pity on 
you. But you brought this on yourself. If you write me 
in time, I will only send four sheets next week . . . Good- 
bye—love to all. 

“Very affectionately, 
““FLowaRD. 

«“p,S, ... 1 was fixing my papers today, looking over 
your old letters to me. I declare they make me feel warm 
around the cockles of my heart, which may perhaps account 
for the length of this letter. . . . Pie 

“New York, 
“November 16, 1878. 
“Dear Mother: 

“Tong looked for come at last! I had begun to despair 
of receiving any letter from you at all. At least I began 
to despair at first, but ended by getting ‘ripping mage ve 
had in my mind fixed a cuttingly sarcastic postal card that 
would pierce to your very heart, but luckily for you your 
tardy letter came just in the nick of time to save yourself. 
I must confess that when it did come it was not very plethoric 
of news; glittering garrulities about dressmaking and so 
forth, but such as it was, it was truly welcome. . . . 

“Now you asked in a contemptuous tone—no, I won’t 
say contemptuous but rather familar tone—a tone entirely 
devoid of the proper amount of awe and wonder—about 
our ‘Artists? Club over the Beer Saloon.’ Now, madam, let 


[ 58 ] 


FRUITFUL ASSOCIATIONS 


me tell you, this is no light matter, but one that should 
rather be spoken of beneath your breath. We assemble 
there to imbibe inspiration, the beer and pretzels being a 
secondary object. My ‘man of the stunning cartoons,’ as 
you are pleased to designate him, happens to be Mr. William 
Chase, engravings from the photographs of whose paintings 
you may possibly see in Harper’s soon along with sundry 
other leaders in art, as a representative American artist. 
He is Piloty’s favorite scholar, whose children he painted 
as well as a somewhat well-known portrait of Prince Bis- 
marck. He at present happens to have the reputation of 
standing at the head of the younger American school of art. 
He is rather a small man with snapping black eyes, a quick 
nervous manner, a thin handsome face, artistic beard and 
moustache, and thick black hair standing erect all over his 
head. To conclude with, he is a polished gentleman, has 
the best standard of all American artists abroad, and has 
a studio with the most magnificent stuff in it in the shape 
of tapestries and old Italian furniture, I ever saw in my 
life. Such is ‘the man of the stunning cartoons’ with whom, 
seriously speaking, your son feels highly honored at being 
connected. 

“Next, Walter Shirlaw, also a Munich student, standing 
only second to Chase. He painted the picture of ‘Tuning 
the Bell, sold abroad, and a photograph of which was 
engraved and published in the London Graphic as the rep- 
resentative picture of the year in which it was exhibited in 
Germany. Shirlaw is a queer, tall, leathery-faced man 
with cadaverous cheeks, a slow way of talking, long Indian- 
like hair, and is very homely. The very antipode of Chase 
in fact. He has queer, long, bony fingers, the peculiar 


[59 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


strangeness of which I could not at first determine, until 
at length I saw that the first finger of each hand was the 
longest. He is one of the best-hearted men in the world, 
kindly to a fault, but upon the whole a just man. His critt- 
cisms and hints have been of the greatest use to me, and 
upon the whole, I look upon Shirlaw with more respect 
probably than upon any man in New York. 

“Next comes Julian Weir, son of Professor Weir of West 
Point, a gay, handsome, roystering blade, broad-built and 
burly, one such as you might picture to yourself as the 
beau ideal of a handsome, roaring, young English country 
squire of the early part of this century. He is a handsome 
man of about twenty-six or -seven, with regular features, 
a firm rather heavy chin, short curly hair, a thick neck and 
broad shoulders. Yet, in spite of this seeming “fleshiness,’ 
there is a true vein of honest sentiment running through his 
nature that develops itself in a delicacy and impalpability 
of flesh color that has more real refinement about it than 
either the fiery Chase or the thoughtful Shirlaw can pro- 
duce. One picture of his particularly, a head of a little 
French peasant girl, exhibited in the French Salon of 1876, 
made more noise there and took a higher prize than any 
American picture painted abroad with the exception of 
Bridgman’s. Weir is a pupil of Géréme, I believe. 

“Such are three of the present leaders, then follow in 
succession Beckwith, Abbey, Reinhart, etc. 

“T believe the latest plans are gradually drifting around 
to the determination of calling together about thirty of the 
leading artists to a general meeting to elect ten members 
in New York City as the very créme de la créme of New 
York artists. These ten men will in all probability be Ward 

[ 60 | 


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m 


> 





FRUITFUL ASSOCIATIONS 


the sculptor, possibly Church the landscape artist, Chase, 
Shirlaw, Weir, George Inness, Swain Gifford, Louis Tiffany 
(possibly), Winslow Homer, John La Farge, possibly 
Abbey, or if he goes abroad, Reinhart may gain the election 
in place of Weir or Tiffany. The outside honorary mem- 
bers will probably be Aikens of Philadelphia, Hunt of 
Boston, Boughton and Hennessey of England with Abbey 
if he goes there, Bridgman of Paris, and Duveneck of 
Munich, as representative American artists. This seems at 
present to be the drift of the club; in addition to these full 
members, there will be associate members to the amount of 
twenty or thirty. It is intended at first to make the club 
a simple matter, for it is not for the public, but for artists; 
a sort of Masonic Brotherhood, as it were, but without 
secrecy. However, none whatever are to be admitted into 
the club but such as make art absolutely and entirely their 
profession; by art I mean the arts of design. It may not 
‘come to any conclusion, but I hope it does. 

“, . . I turned to tackle my ‘Christmas in Old New 
York.?* In the very outset difficulties met me. I couldn’t 
get costumes, that is correct costumes. I could get them as 
near as those Clifford posed in for me as ‘British Interven- 
tion, but now those do not suit my fastidious taste any 
longer. I know what is correct and I must have shat. 
I rummaged among the costumers and at last thought I 
had found a good one among them, but he sent me such 
stuff—such vile stuff—that, my disgust giving way to 
anger, I kicked the boot-tops into one corner, the coat into 
another, and the hat on top of the closet, in consequence 


* This picture was not published until Christmas, 1880, when it appeared 
in Harper's Weekly, vol. xxiv, p. 828. 


[ 61 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


of which I tore said hat. This morning the costumer, a 
big, flabby, meek man, came to my studio. ‘How you like 
dose soldier clothes?’ he said. It was Sunday to be sure, 
but in spite of that I took him by the buttonhole and so 
retained him while I reproached him bitterly. He took 
the costume and the torn hat meekly away, evidently looking 
upon me as the most magnanimous of men, that I spoke 
of my grievances rather in sorrow than anger. In con- 
sequence of this, I shall probably have to have a cos- 
tume made—four or five of us will probably go in together 
and have several made under our own supervision— 
Correctly: sic 

“And now for the most important item—but I must take 
a new sheet of paper. I take a fresh pen, dip it in the ink 
and begin—Harpers want me to go to Texas for them. 
There, I knew I should break the news too suddenly to 
you! Yes, Harpers want me to go to Texas for them; for 
four or five months too, and probably in three or four weeks. 
Mr. Parsons spoke of it to me the other day, asking upon 
what terms I would go. I told him I did not think forty 
dollars a week and expenses paid would be too much, and 
he agreed with me. I did not jump very eagerly at the 
proposal as I should like now for the present to remain 
permanently in New York. Here I enjoy myself; I have 
found at last congenial companions among the more con- 
siderable artists. "There I shall have a hard life, a great 
deal of horseback travel from ranch to ranch, which induces 
a sore sitting-down place, and introductions to total strangers, 
which I hate. I consulted Shirlaw and Church whose 
opinions I greatly rely on: Church says go of course; Shir- 
law says, ‘I don’t know; it may do you good.’ On the next 


[ 62 | 


FRUITFUL ASSOCIATIONS 


day I went down and told Mr. Parsons that I should like 
to accept, but much disliked the literary part of it. He 
said he was glad to hear this, as Mr. Alden thought that 
a literary man and an artist should go together, and that 
I should take either the one or the other. Of course, I 
chose the artistic part and Mr. Parsons agreed with me. 
He said the matter was not entirely settled yet, but they 
thought that undoubtedly the article should be put under 
way. Somehow or other I don’t feel very much enthusiasm 
about it and indeed can hardly realize it, it seems so dim 
and improbable. I shall not be disappointed if it fall 
through, as it may, and I rather believe it will; neither 
shall I feel very much elated if it is passed. In short, 
I view the possibility of it with an indifference that surprises 
MESelis.- 

“Shirlaw and I went the other night to see the last pres- 
entation of ‘The School for Scandal? at Wallack’s. It 
was ‘stunning,’ as Chase says. . 

“Abbey starts for England on Saturday. So finishes my 
budget and with it my letter. Adiew—Love to all. 

““FIOWARD.” 


The Texas trip alluded to in this letter did not materialize. 
Perhaps it was just as well that it didn’t, for Texas could 
have done little for Howard Pyle—his work was not of the 
sort that requires a special knowledge of the western back- 
ground—and there is no denying the fact that his continual 
association in New York with men of Chase’s and Shirlaw’s 
stamp, which was thus left uninterrupted, had a most happy 
influence on his development. 

The next and last letter of the group to be quoted ex- 


[ 63 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


presses toward the end his desire to study abroad. It is, 
of course, useless to speculate as to what would have hap- 
pened had he done so, but it is difficult to keep from feeling 
that, under the influence of French ideas and French tech- 
nique, many of the things for which he has been most 
loved would never have been given to the world. 


“New York, 
“November 25, 1878. 


“Dear Mother: 

“J must confess that this week comes a dearth of news 
after the plenty of last letter, although now that 1 come 
to think of it it was more description than news after all. 
I am glad to see that at last you ‘veil your stomach’ and 
confess with the proper humility the greatness of the earth, 
that is of the New York art earth, although you still con- 
tinue to call Mr. Chase ‘the man of the stunning cartoons,’ 
which not only sounds like a line in a comic ballad but is 
a flippancy which is aggravating...  ~ 

“On Monday night we had a second meeting of ‘our 
club, Walter Shirlaw presiding as Chairman. We talked, 
oh! how we talked. First one member would arise calling 
vigorously ‘Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman!’ Mr. Chair- 
man would perhaps be talking affably on indifferent topics 
with the member nearest him, but presently, remembering 
himself, he would answer, stiffening up his back at the 
time, ‘Mr. O’Donovan has the floor.” Mr. O’Donovan 
would thereupon launch forth with a burst of Hibernian 
eloquence. From the subject of qualifying membership 
he would wander to a dissertation upon modern art com- 
pared with the ancient, and from that to a discussion of 


lees 


FRUITFUL ASSOCIATIONS 


the comparative merits of the Venus de Milo and the Torso 
Belvedere; this would touch Reinhart to the quick and he 
would immediately join in, the Hibernian and American 
elements flowing happily together. Mr. Chairman would 
presently express fis opinion and then confusion would 
reign. Thus we sat discussing club matters, beer, and 
pretzels, until half after eleven. At the end of that time it 
was determined upon to invite nine more men to meet us 
and ‘talk over matters.? If eleven men involve themselves 
in such confusion, what will twenty do? Tomorrow night 
we meet. 

“Our composition class at the League still prospers. The 
subject last week was ‘A Cold Night.’ I treated it by rep- 
resenting a highwayman who had just entered a roadside 
inn (American) and is standing with his back to the fire 
jealously watching a group of countrymen who are seated 
around a table discussing hot whiskey punch. They are 
whispering among themselves about the suspicious stranger, 
and he slyly holds a pistol behind him to be in readi- 
ness in case of an attack.’ 

“It gives you at least an idea of the positions of the figures. 
It is the best thing I have ever done and was very much 
praised up by the boys (Shirlaw, Chase, and Reinhart). 
I am going to send it to Harpers tomorrow. I don’t 
believe it will go, but I may as well venture it .. . 

“Once more I have discreetly saved my most important 
item until the last. A gentleman came to my studio, one 
I have known for some time, and made me an offer as 
follows: If I could get two other men or three others, 


*This sketch was afterward elaborated and published under the title 
“The Mysterious Guest,” in Harper's Weekly, vol. xxvii, p. 185. 


[ 65 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


as the case may be, to go in with him, he, on his part, would 
give me two hundred dollars a year to keep me in Paris 
for five, six, or seven years, long enough in short for me to 
finish my studies there; the only return to be that I paint 
him a picture at the end of my studies in my best manner. 
For seven hundred dollars a year I could live well in Paris. 
If I could only get two others to take part in the arrange- 
ment I could manage it, but I do not know anyone except 
Harpers who would be at all likely to help me. It seems 
hard, when one thinks what two hundreds dollars means 
to a rich man, that I cannot manage it. To whom shall 
I apply? But here I am at the bottom of my third sheet, 
so good-bye. 


“HOWARD.” 


[ 66 ] 


GHAPTERVIV 
THE RETURN 


ATE in the year 1879 New York began to lose its 
interest for Howard Pyle. There had been some- 
thing very attractive in the free and easy life, full 
of triumphs and defeats, crowded with companions who 
had been something more than friends to him, who had 
been fellow-workers striving for the same ideal, a perfec- 
tion of the illustrative art. But now the old cameraderie 
was breaking up; Abbey had gone to England, Frost was in 
Philadelphia, Reinhart was drawn away by his increasing 
work and growing popularity. The ranks were being filled 
by a new class of artists, “the straight hat brims and pointed 
beards” as Remington called them, who were not so inter- 
ested in the practical side of illustration, but who devoted, 
themselves more to the accepted phases of landscape and 
portraiture, who borrowed freely from anything eccentric, 
and constantly defended their own little peculiarities. With 
this type of artist Howard Pyle could not associate and re- 
main happy. He was too overwhelmingly occupied with 
ideals; his thoughts were big; he was planning how illus- 
tration might be made a well-recognized branch of the Fine 
Arts. These artists had no interest in any such improve- 
ment. Illustration to them was mere hack work. To one of 
Howard Pyle’s temperament, which was courageously 
_ manly, and yet colored with a poetic mysticism that gave 


[ 67 J 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


him a clear vision into the minds of children, it was in- 
evitable that this kind of artist should seem effeminate and 
unpractical. He found it impossible to be on intimate terms 
with them. 

In the meantime his work had improved vastly. He was 
making more and more drawings for Mr. Parsons, and was 
meeting continually with that generous man’s approval. He 
had written a short story of Colonial days for Harper’s, 
“The Last Revel in Printz Hall,’ which had marked a 
great advance over the earlier work for St. Nicholas, and 
which had been moderately successful with the public. The 
illustrations for this story, and for two articles by other 
hands, “The Old National Pike,”* and “Sea Drift from 
a New England Port,”* had given the most convincing 
evidence that here was a man who was able to portray 
Colonial life with an accuracy and spirit which no one else 
had ever approached. These successes gave him a good 
reputation with the Harpers, who were very anxious to 
keep him before their public. He had accomplished what 
he had come to New York to do: he had built up his pro- 
fessional skill, and had found for his productions a market 
where he was sure of being well paid. | 

Now, there was no reason for remaining in New York, 
especially when he found his surroundings so unpleasant. 
His thoughts turned irresistibly to Wilmington. He could 
live there more cheaply and at the same time have all the 
advantages of being with his family and with the people 
whom he had known from childhood. Already he had the 


project of a book in his head—the Robin Hood that fie 


1 Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. lix, p. 520, (September, 1879). 
* [bid., vol. lix, p. 801, (November, 1879). 
* Ibid., vol. 1x, p. 59, (December, 1879). 


[ 68 | 





A SAILOR’S SWEETHEART 


From 


By Lanp anp SEA 
Harper’s Magazine, 1895 





THE RETURN 


been mentioned in the diary-letters. In Wilmington he 
would have plenty of opportunity to do work for the maga- 
zines and at the same time start on this book, which he was 
sure would immediately place him high in the ranks of 
writers for children. At home he would be able to take ad- 
vantage of his mother’s criticism, and with Robin Hood 
looming up in the foreground that was an advantage not to 
be considered lightly. All these things with their cumula- 
tive weight convinced him that there was nothing more to 
be gained by remaining in New York, and hastened his de- 
parture to Wilmington. 

Before leaving, however, he arranged with the Harpers 
and with Mr. Parsons that stories and articles should be sent 
to him for illustration, and that he should be considered 
as a regular member of the staff. For the Scribner house 
he had done very little work since the earliest days, and 
he could consequently make no such agreement with them, 
but he hoped, nevertheless, to do something for them 
occasionally. 

In Wilmington things were very little changed. There 
was the same happy family, the same congenial atmosphere, 
the intoxicating enthusiasm and ever-loyal interest on the 
part of his mother. A studio was arranged on the top floor 
of the house. Mrs. Pyle gave it the feminine touch, made 
it comfortable, and kept it in order. Here he could work, 
drawing whatever pictures Harpers requested of him. For 
models he used his mother, his brothers, or any obliging 
friend of the family. In addition to this work, he spent 
many hours over the composition of that children’s book 
which was to start him on a career of writing. 

There was one New York friendship that continued. 


[ 69 | 


HOWARD PY LEO ASO RONICLE 


A. B. Frost was not so far away but that he could come 
to Wilmington occasionally to visit. The two of them 
would go on sketching expeditions along the banks of the 
Brandywine and among the rolling hills that lay to the 
north and west. Those were peaceful days, days when the 
gathering of impressions and knowledge were the all- 
important events. As Mr. Frost says, “Through the period 
of our intimacy nothing really happened—it was just a 
cordial, humdrum friendship.” But it kept Howard Pyle 
in touch with a master of his craft, and to a certain extent 
continued the influence which the “Olympians” of the New 
York days had had on him. 

At this time the chief subject in his head was history, and 
how to adapt it to popular pictures and stories. He read 
voluminously in Parkman and Bancroft and everybody else 
who had written on American history; he talked with all the 
old people who could tell him stories that they had heard 
from their fathers and mothers concerning the Revolu- 
tionary War and the Colonial days. All this he absorbed 
eagerly and remembered with remarkable tenacity. It was 
definite and rigorous research; no detail was missed; and 
all of it was of such a nature that he could use it in his 
future work. Years later he could tell precisely how many 
buttons a colonel in a Massachusetts regiment had on his 
coat, or could give the exact color of the hat worn by 
General Wolfe. He knew in what battles each regiment 
had been engaged; he knew the definite line of march in 
every campaign, and the spot where every battle had been 
fought. A great enthusiasm carried him through this con- 
tinual prying into musty volumes, and it was an enthusiasm 
that never dwindled. 


fooy 


THE RETURN 


With his newly acquired historical information he tried 
an experiment or two in the form of short articles on phases 
of Colonial life that had not been given prominence in the 





From 

TOM CHIST AND 
THE TREASURE BOX 
Harper's Round Table 
1896 





public eye. The first was an account of the Philadelphia 
Bartrams, that quaint and little-known family of botanists 
which had done so much to acquaint European scientists 
with the hitherto unknown types of flora that existed in 


Pat 


HOWARD. PYLERASCORONICLE 


the wilds of America. Not only did he make clear the 
great contribution to knowledge made by John Bartram, but 
he also gave a glowing picture of the simplicity of life and 
the hospitality of the old Quaker. ‘This article,’ with its 
perfectly planned illustrations, greatly impressed Mr. Par- 
sons, who immediately requested another of the same nature. 
This time it was an account of “Old-Time Life in a Quaker 
Town” *“—a sympathetic exposition of old Wilmington, 
alive with anecdote and marked by a vigorous love of the 
subject. These were sufficient to establish his reputation 
for this kind of work, and to make his standing with Har- 
pers more fixed that it had been before. 

Since he was perfectly capable of both writing and 
illustrating, the publishers would occasionally send him to 
some locality which in their opinion was so little known 
that it might provide enough material of an interesting 
nature to warrant an article. Several times he was sent 
off into remote districts of Pennsylvania or New Jersey in 
quest of such journalistic fodder, and he seldom failed to 
make a good thing of it. 

In the meantime he was thoroughly enjoying his life 
in Wilmington. It was quiet and restful after the activity 
of the preceding three years. He had the opportunity of 
doing a number of things for which there never had been 
time in New York. He could read much more, he could 
occasionally plan a picture from his own ideas without 
thought of publication and without trying to make it suitable 
for the magazines; and these activities were in addition to 


the historical research and the Robin Hood. But, perhaps, 


* “Bartram and His Garden,” Harper's New M onthly Magazine, February, 
1880, vol. Ix, p. 321. 
* I[bid., January, 1881, vol. Ixii, p. 178. 


[722] 


THE RETURN 


best of all was the re-entry into the community life, the 
simple pleasures of lawn tennis and whist parties, the con- 
stant society of the restrained but cultivated young Wil- 
mingtonians, the great majority of whom were either 
Quakers or of Quaker extraction. He took a moderately 
active part in the social life of the little city, but always 
a simple part. He would not allow himself to be lionized 
because of his art connections. Even his successes, which 
had been considerable, especially for a town such as Wil- 
mington, did not put any barrier between him and the young 
people with whom he was continually thrown. He entered 
into the play of social amenities just as if he had never been 
away to New York, just as if he had never painted “The 
Wreck in the Offing.” 

The Quakers in their original doctrines had been very 
much opposed to music. It was never used in-any of their 
meetings, and by many was looked upon as a device of the 
Evil One. With their continued cultural development, 
however, the Wilmington Quakers, except for a small sect 
which was extremely orthodox in its opinions, had developed 
a positive interest in music. This was especially true of 
those who, like the Pyles, had more or less given up their 
old religious affinities. The production of oratorios and can- 
tatas and the like became regular occurrences. Everyone 
who could qualify with his voice was in great demand. 

Howard Pyle had a rich tenor voice and considerable 
facility in using it that made him very popular in musical 
circles. Even in New York he had been regularly urged by 
Mr. Roswell Smith to lend his aid to the choir of the First 
Congregational Church. In Wilmington, on his return, he 
did not immediately turn his attention to any of these musical 


[73 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


festivities. After he had been home a few months, how- 
ever, there arose an occasion when it would have been very 
undiplomatic for him to refuse to sing. A group of young 
intellectuals had established a lyceum, a sort of club, 
where literature and other cultural subjects could be 
weighed and discussed. This lyceum was about to have 
a picnic, and in elaborating the plans for the gay occasion, 
the members had decided that they must have some singing, 
since otherwise the day would not be complete. All details 
in regard to the chorus were arranged, but there was one 
vital lack; they needed another tenor. A helpful member 
mentioned the fact that young Pyle, who had just lately 
returned from New York, had an excellent tenor voice and 
suggested that he be asked to supply the deficiency in the 
chorus. Accordingly, Howard Pyle was pressed into service 
and told that the first rehearsal would take place at the 
Pooles’, a family which he had known only in the way in 
which everyone knew everyone else in Wilmington in those 
days. On the appointed evening he went to the Pooles’, 
where he was the first to arrive. Miss Anne Poole met 
him at the door. She did not know precisely who the 
strange young man was, but she readily guessed that he 
was the new tenor and therefore engaged him in conversa- 
tion concerning some triviality of singing or of the weather. 
When the other singers came they found Miss Poole and 
Howard Pyle congenially talking and supposed, of course, 
that they were old friends. Consequently the evening’s 
rehearsal went by and they were not introduced. And in 
Wilmington society in the late seventies for two people to 
become well acquainted without being properly introduced 
was a most unconventional thing. Nevertheless, it hap- 


| 74 ] 


yf 











































































































THE CHOICEST PIECES OF CARGO WERE SOLD AT AUCTION 


From 
New Yorx Srave TRADERS 
Harper’s Magazine, 1895 





THE RETURN 


pened in this case. The young lady had made so deep an 
impression that Howard Pyle found it convenient for him 
to call at the Poole house very frequently. He was no 
longer a stranger there. In fact, his visits became more 
and more regular, and by July, 1880, the two young people 
had become engaged. 

Howard Pyle now found it very necessary to ascertain 
whether or not he could make enough money to support two 
in the same manner in which Miss Poole had always lived, 
for it was inconceivable to him to think of marrying her un- 
less he could give her everything which she had in her 
present home. To be sure, he was working regularly for 
Harper’s, occasionally he had pictures in other magazines, 
and there was the prospect of Robin Hood. All things 
considered, he felt that he was justified, but first he must 
see Mr. Parsons. Miss Poole was spending the summer 
in Rehoboth, a little seaside town on the Delaware coast 
a few miles south of Cape Henlopen. He wrote to her on 
July 29th. “ . . . That will make a hundred and thirty- 
five dollars worth of work since Monday at noon. I guess 
we ought to be able to live on that if I keep it up... . I 
want to write a letter to old Parsons and tell him of my 
future prospects. I would rather see him but that would 
take another day and—well I can’t spare it just now. He 
ought to know, however, as he holds the loaf of bread 
from which we are to cut an occasional slice.” But on 
second thought he did not write to Mr. Parsons; he con- 
cluded that it would be preferable to wait until business 
carried him to New York, and then to broach the all- 
important subject. In the meantime there were several 


[75 ] 


HOWARD PYLE? AVCHRONICLE 


trips to Rehoboth, for that little village was only a hundred 
miles away. 

Then about the middle of August he went to New York. 
Here is the account of the trip as it was sent to Rehoboth: 
“And now I am back from New York. . . . I went im- 
mediately down to ‘The House’ and saw Alden, the editor 
of the Magazine, about that New Brunswick trip. He 
seemed quite anxious for me to go but I represented to him 
that it was anything but a pleasure for me to travel alone to 
a country of which I knew nothing, to gather material of 
which I had no idea, to make an article of which I did not 
have the slightest conception. If I had a companion I might 
enjoy it and we might suggest items to one another. Where- 
upon I delicately insinuated Frost’s name. But Alden did 
not snap at it in the least. He said that the ‘House’ was 
making complaints in regard to the expense of running the 
magazine and, as this would be an expensive trip, they could 
not afford to have two artists in the field at once; that he 
fully understood my disinclination to undertake the work 
alone, but yet was sorry that I could not do it. He re- 
minded me that it was I myself that had first proposed the 
trip to him. That was very true and I had nothing to 
say, but I thought how circumstances were altered now. 
There followed some more parlance which it is needless 
to recapitulate here, and finally matters were compromised 
by the conclusion that if Mr. William H. Bishop would 
undertake the writing I should go along and do the 
illustrations. Bishop is a second-rate writer of considerable 
ability who has done many short stories for the Atlantic 
Monthly and other periodicals and has of late been writing 
a novel, I believe, for the above mentioned monthly. Alden 


[ 76 ] 


DHE REEURN, 


is to see whether he will go and if he does I must pull up 
stakes and toddle after him. I am to hear in a day or so. 

“T then went in to see Old Parsons (‘old’ in the affec- 
tionate sense of the word). I told him of my happiness 
and he congratulated me, etc. . . . I then asked him just 
what my prospects were with ‘The House.’ He said, ‘I 
shall speak to you very plainly on the subject, Pyle, and 
then went on to say, ‘The House’ was complaining of 
the high prices they were paying for each edition of the 
magazine and that he did not know whether any changes 
would be made before Harry Harper returned from Eu- 
rope or not. I felt my heart sink as he said this for it 
seemed as though it indicated a loosening of the ties be- 
tween us. But he went on to ask how much work I thought 
ought to be guaranteed me. I told him I thought twenty- 
five hundred dollars a year. He said that when Harry came 
back from Europe (in a week or ten days) he would speak 
to him on the matter, and that he thought beyond all doubts 
I was safe to remain with them permanently no matter what 
changes were made. I felt very much disheartened and said 
to him, ‘Do you think, Mr. Parsons, that I have made a 
mistake; that I have been too hasty and selfish and involved 
a girl who has hitherto been raised with every want satisfied 
in an affair with an uncertain future?’ for I called to mind 
the case of William Morgan, an artist in New York, who 
started with the highest prospects when young and who now 
lives a life of bitter drudgery compared to which a hod- 
carrier’s is heavenly. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I don’t think anything 
of the kind. (I try to repeat to you just what he said with- 
out false modesty or conceit.) I have seen your work from 
the start, and have seen it steadily improving. A man of 


aire 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


your talents is perfectly safe, barring any dispensation of 
Providence, and I should be perfectly willing to trust the 
future of any of my daughters to you and would do so 
without hesitation, and in saying that I say all that I can 
say.’ He said that it was not likely that ‘The House’ would 
dispense with my services, but that even if they did I could 
make a better living in all likelihood than if I worked 
entirely for them.” 

After this encouraging opinion from Mr. Parsons, 
Howard Pyle started in to work with redoubled energy. 
Everything that could possibly strengthen his position he 
did; pictures, many of them the best that he had done thus 
far, were completed in much less time than it had formerly 
taken him; expeditions to neighboring points of interest were 
planned—the New Brunswick one would have carried him 
too far from Rehoboth—that they might provide material 
for new articles. It occurred to him that it might be well 
to have two good strings to his bow, that it would be prudent 
to make his relations with Scridner’s somewhat more inti- 
mate than they had been of late. On September 16th he 
wrote to Miss Poole: 

“I’m just teetotally tired out and that’s a fact—and 
cross—ye Gods! but ain’t I cross! I have just been to New 
York, which accounts for the milk in the cocoanut. Yes, 
Pve been in New York attending to—our business, may I 
say? I did not feel entirely satisfied in going it blind by 
coming up to Stroudsburg, writing an article and running 
the chance of its being accepted, so I thought I would run 
on this morning and see the houses as to whether either of 
them would like to have such an article. As I am ina man- 
ner cutting loose from Harpers, I thought it the best plan 

cH 


THE RETURN 


to see Scribners first, thinking it might be the means of 
renewing my foothold with them. To tell the truth, one of 
the reasons for the numerous fits of the ‘blues’ that I have 
had lately has been my uncertainty as to how Scribners re- 
garded my desertion of them for the banner of Harpers’. 
I wrote to them, you know, telling them that I could now 
do work for them, but as I had not heard from Mr. Drake 
I began to fear that they had gone back on me. Hence 
my uncomfortable feelings. But I found that I was re- 
ceived with open arms, the blowing of trumpets, the killing 
of the prodigal for the return of the fatted calf. (1 think 
that is a little mixed, but never mind.) 

“Mr. Gilder, the acting editor-in-chief, was not there, 
but Johnson, the ‘sub,’ was and seemed to think very well 
indeed of the proposed matter, as did Drake, the art editor. 
Of course, Johnson did not like to take the responsibility of 
positively ordering the article himself so it looked a little bit 
uncertain. My intention had been to offer it to Scribners 
first and if they did not care for it, then to take it to Har- 
pers, but Johnson did so seem to hate to let it go by, that 
I promised not to submit the matter to Harpers until I 
had heard from them. So as things now stand I am just 
exactly where I was this morning. No, not exactly, either. 
I feel I have established a foothold with them which 1s 
something—a great deal. 

“Hang these quill pens! I like to write with them but 
they wear out so quickly—well, Dll take another. 

“Johnson said that I should in all likelihood hear from 
them on Saturday. If they should not accept it I shall do 
it anyhow and run the risk of Harpers taking it. 

“T felt fairly sick when I saw some of the designs that 


[ 79 | 


HOW ARDY PY DETR ARG RON ICE 


Drake had in the art room. They lay all over mine with 
several yards to spare. H. P. will certainly have to work 
up if he means to keep with the crowd. I hate that fellow 
Blum’s work but it is decidedly artistic in many ways. One 
can’t form a just idea of it by seeing the engravings alone. 
Then there is a young fellow—a mere boy—doing land- 
scapes, phew, mine are not a patch upon them. If I get up 
to Stroudsburg all right, I am just going to lay myself out 
to make good sketches or knock the bung out of the barrel. 

“Drake says he is going to count on me to do lots of work 
for them; speaks of an article they want me to travel for, 
when I come back from the Water Gap. 

“TI stayed so long with Scribners that I had no time to 
see Harpers, but only just enough to run into the Graphic 
office on my way down to the ferry. I had sent on a sketch 
of my ‘Christmas in the Old Times,’ but since I had not 
heard from them, I finished it up without waiting. It 
seems that they think it is a little too tipsy a subject for 
them—in short, they don’t like it. Disappointment? No. 
They did not object very strongly—only thought that per- 
haps something else might do better. They were very re- 
spectful, rather surprisingly so, I thought, in my present 
humble-spirited frame of mind. I think I shall send in 
the finished design and see if they won’t care to have it 
AS UNS. eh ne | 
The result of the trip to Stroudsburg was an article, 
“Autumn Sketches in the Pennsylvania Highlands.”* It 
was saturated with the spirit of nature, the sort of thing that 
John Burroughs could do infinitely better, but the decora- 
tions were exquisite. Harpers liked it, and it was pub- 

* Harper's New Monthly Magazine, December, 1881, vol. lxiv, p. 88. 


[ 80 ] 


THE RETURN 


lished in December of the next year. Then in November 
he was sent by Harper’s into the Pennsylvania Dutch sec- 
tion to acquaint himself with the customs and habits of the 
-peculiar people who live in the vicinity of Lancaster. Here 
some of his experiences, as he related them in letters to 
Miss Poole, were rather amusing: 


“November 16, 1880. 


« |. . I went around to a Dunker minister to talk things 
over. The minister seemed quite an intelligent man, but 
said that one Jacob Pfautz, living near Ephrata, would be 
the one to give me the most information, since he was both 
very intelligent and very well-informed, beside being a man 
of such entire leisure that to give information and to toddle 
about the country with me would be a positive luxury to 
him. Said Pfautz is a Dunker and knows all about the 
interesting spots. I want to stay with him if I can while 
I am gathering my material. I think he will be a lucky find 


and a godsend to me... . ” 


“November 17, 1880. 

“| | . You see where I am (Ephrata)—and the name 
spelled right thanks to being printed. But I am not going 
to stay here—oh no! Iam going back to Lancaster tonight. 
And I am going to stay in Lancaster and am going to get 
one meal at least in Lancaster. The unpronounceable pro- 
prietor of this Mount Vernon House told me today that 
this was a Dutch house, kept in Dutch style, and that I must 
help myself accordingly, which I did, to fat pork, turnips, 
diminutive sweet potatoes, dried peaches, and an indescrib- 
able pie, but oh my!—never mind, I won’t say anything 
about my poor stomach just here. . . . I am going back 


[ 81 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


to Lancaster tonight, as I said, for dear only knows what 
the German bed may be... . 

“And now for my absolute news. I find the natives here 
as hard to open as an oyster without a knife. Your mother: 
was quite right. They do not expand with the geniality 
one might expect from the bucolic German. On the contrary 
they shut with the most persistent tenacity. I landed in 
Ephrata feeling—metaphorically speaking—like the Vizier’s 
son in the Arabian Nights, when he was suddenly trans- 
ported into the desert with almost nothing on, so ill at ease 
was I. Mr. Bare had given me a letter to John (not Jacob) 
Pfautz, whom he represented as a man of great intelligence 
and knowledge of the German Baptists. I found at home 
a pleasant-faced German woman and a man with a long 
beard and a pendulous wen on his cheek. John was in the 
workhouse; she rang the bell and he came. He turned the 
letter over and over in his hands with a vague look on his 
face that gradually broke with some intelligence as he said 
that he remembered Dan Bare. He maundered on about 
his having books and things, but happened to forget what 
was in them. I confess I felt rather helpless when I con- 
sidered this as a sample of extra-intelligence, but the pleas- 
ant-faced woman (his daughter) explained that the old 
man was getting childish—which made the old man mad. 

“T had to give it up, so I walked up the road a piece 
to where one of the Bishops of the church lives, but he was 
not in. His wife informed me that ‘he’ll generally be here 
till (at) ten o’clock. I don’t think as he’ll be gone till very 
long.? I waited an hour for him but no signs of his ap- 
proach appeared—still, his wife every now and then dropped 
in to tell me that ‘he’s generally here till ten o’clock or a 


[ 82 | 





[are 


WASHINGTON AND MARY PHILIPSE 
From 

CoLtonreL WaAsHINGTO 
Harper’s Magazine, 1896 








THE RETURN 


little after. I guess he’ll found somebodies down till the 
drain to talks,’ or something of the kind. I left at eleven 
o’clock and went up to see another man in reference to the 
sisterhood, who referred me to another man who was not in 
town. So I went down to the Cloister to look at it. It was 
stunning. It would make an article of itself. I shall cer- 
tainly devote most of mine to it... . 

“Then I went down again to see the Bishop but found 
him as oysterlike as all the rest. But by that time I had my 
knife, so to speak, patience. I talked to him patiently and 
persistently, and he finally opened right succulently, so to 
speak. He gave me whole gobs of information, told me of 
many books of reference, and wound up by taking me over 
to the big meeting house in his queer little rickety gig, 
opening the place and showing me through generally. Just 
think of it! If I had been there last week I could have 
seen a love feast, but I missed that and there won’t be 
another until next spring. 

“Then I went down again to unintelligently intelligent 
friend Pfautz, applying to him also the oyster knife of 
patience, and he opened also in as great a degree as he 
was capable of doing, promising to show me through the 
Sisterhood Cloister tomorrow. ... ” 


“November 18, 1880. 
“<’. . . Ye Gods! What a time I have had! I came 
back and found my friend Pfautz waiting for me at the 
station according to promise—and very much good he did 
me. Item to be booked for future use: Never take a man 
to be a fool when he seems anxious to represent himself as 
being one. To use an expression of your mother’s, ‘These 


[ 83 | 


HOWARD) PYLES® A CHRONICLE 


people are smarter than they look.’ At least, that is what 
is beginning to dawn upon me. When you begin to en- 
quire of a Pennsylvania Dutchman about things with which 
he thinks you have no business and which concern him, his 
face assumes a stony ‘expressionless expression,’ so to speak, 
most exasperating and most hopeless to an impatient na- 
ture. My aged friend Pfautz showed himself quite agile 
and intelligent this morning. He talked to me and gave 
me quite an amount of information. 

“He took me up to the Cloisters and pointed out the 
different buildings, giving quite a little lecture upon them. 
He took me in and introduced me to the chief sister, plead- 
ing in the most engaging fashion for permission for me to 
sketch. He took me around and introduced me to the 
minister, also pleading with him, and finally got full and 

limitless permission to make all the sketches I wanted. 
7 They told me yesterday that the chapel was locked up— 
so it was, but there was a back entrance and by that I was 
inserted. 

“I think I can say without vanity that I made a complete 
‘mash’ of the chief sister. I talked to her in the sweetest 
way I was capable of doing, and she answered me in English 
as broken as ancient Italian china. She was a very fat, 
dumpy specimen of humanity about sixty years old. She 
showed me all about the chapel and the cookhouse at the 
rear where the soup is cooked for the love feasts. She took 
me upstairs and downstairs, into crumbling cubbies and 
moulding pantries. We ascended grasping a rope in lieu 
of a banister. She introduced me to the other sisters of 
which there were three, exhibited my sketches and assumed 
complete ownership of yours truly. She showed me old 


[ 84 ] 


ibs KERR 


spinning machines, reels, dilapidated chairs, clocks inhabited 
by earwigs and things, flat wooden legs for stretching stock- 
ings upon, wooden candlesticks and Providence only knows 
what else. 

“The minister who lives near asked me to dinner and 
a right good plain dinner it was. He was another one [ 
took to be a stupid oaf at first, but who turned out to be 
quite an intelligent and not a badly informed man. 

“Do you speak German?’ said he. 

No, sir? 

“Also not at all?? 

No; sir.’ 

“¢Then I might scold you well without your knowing— 
ain’t?? said he. I think I must have stared at him with the 
most absurd blankness, so surprised was I at his joke... . 

“J have only one regret—I asked the old sister to sit 
to me for her portrait, but she declined. I begged, I im- 
plored, I argued with her for half an hour—but no go. 
She smiled, looked sheepish, and declined in the very best 
Pennsylvania Dutch. 

“Ffowever, I got three sketches, all interiors—one of the 
chapel, one of an old clock beside a door which was about 
five feet high. All the doors in the house were about that 
altitude—to imitate the small and narrow way, friend 
PeatimtolG ine... .” 


“November 19, 1880. 
“Bur-r-r-ruh! but it was cold today. I managed to pot- 
ter along tolerably well in the morning, sitting in the sun 
and sketching the old buildings of the Cloister. But when 
I undertook in the afternoon to go around and get another 


[85 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


view, sitting in the shade, I had to resign. I worked along 
for some time with stiff fingers and chilled bones, but when 
I got to painting and the water I was using froze in little 
cakes all over the picture, I absolutely could not go on. 
I would have stuck at it in spite of chilled fingers if it had 
not been for that. 

“¢. . . IT went in to warm my hands and the strict head 
sister took them into her own puffy palms in the most 
motherly way, saying with a surprised air ‘dey is golt,’ just 
as if it were a land of Egypt out in the shadow of the 
woodshed. I thought it a good time to bone her again about 
having her picture taken, but she still firmly declined in 
Pennsylvania Dutch. 

“As I could do no more at the pulang’ I went over to 
see my ancient friend Pfautz. I showed him the sketch 
_I had made and he was interested. Then I asked him to 
sit for his picture. Here his daughter put in her word, 
objecting most strongly. I think the old man rather liked 
the idea. He had the queerest old trousers that might have 
been worn by Noah anterior to his cruise—yellow with age 
and patched with parti-colored remnants—oh! so _ pic- 
turesque! His daughter thought it would be ungodly to 
have his picture taken. I thought she meant ungodly for 
me to draw it. ‘I?ll take the responsibility, I said. ‘You 
better be responsible for yourself,’ said she, ‘one soul ought 
to be enough for you.? Then I quoted Scripture and she 
answered with twice as much. Then I appealed to the 
old man. ‘She will scoldt me,’ said he, ‘and make it onpleas- 
ant.’ To make a long story short I finally prevailed, pro- 
vided I would not sketch more than his head. 

[ 86 | 


THE RETURN 


“This was not exactly what I wanted, but half a loaf is 
better than no bread, so I acceded to this stipulation. 

“The old man followed me out of the house when I was 
done. ‘Vas you going to publish that in Harper's Weekly? 
said he. 

“(Harpers Monthly, if you will let me. I hope you 
won’t object.’ 

“ (FTo-no-no,’ said he—then after a pause, ‘but don’t 
tell my daughter.’ 

Ohno.’ 

“Again he hesitated. ‘You'll put my name, won’t your’ 

“Why I don’t know.’ 

“<T inks you petter—ain’t my name’s John B. Pfautz— 
John Bauer Pfautz—aigh? (with a rising inflection). And 
you might send me one of the papers—aigh?’ ” 


The article which grew out of this work among the 
Dunkers was successfully completed, but was not published 
until nine years later. One cannot help wondering whether 
the amiable Pfautz lived to see his picture in the magazine. 

After an autumn and winter of strenuous work, Howard 
Pyle proved to himself that he was capable of making a 
good living. Everything seemed to be well arranged. He 
was on good terms with both Harpers and Scribners; 
there was very slight difficulty in having either his stories 
or his pictures accepted; and then in addition to that, Har- 
pers had recently started a new children’s magazine, known 
as Harpers Young People, to which he was contributing 
regularly, since it offered him unbounded opportunities for 
his favorite work. He was amazingly happy, both that he 
had proven himself and that the future was brimming with 


[ 87] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


hope. On April 12, 1881, they were married, Howard Pyle 
and Anne Poole, with A. B. Frost acting as best man. 

Then the work that meant his career really began in 
earnest; not that it had not been in earnest before, but now 
there was something more tangible in view, now there was 
a responsibility that gave motive force to his plans and 
ambitions. One of the first things undertaken was an 
illustrated edition of Yankee Doodle—a very rare book 
now—for Dodd, Mead & Company. It was done in 
color in a very crude way, for the methods of color repro- 
duction were by no means refined in 1881. It was full of a 
quaint and sprightly kind of humor, and was sufficiently suc- 
cessful to be followed up by The Lady of Shalott, done in 
the same manner. But whereas in so Vigorous a subject 
as Yankee Doodle the imperfect coloring made little dif- 
ference, in this new book with its romantic fervor and in. 
tensity it meant a cheapening and vulgarizing of the pictures. 
The Lady of Shalott was a book which Howard Pyle always 
looked back upon with horror. Nothing would have suited 
him better than to see every copy destroyed. His critical 
standards were always high; he'would have withdrawn the 
book at the time of publication had it been possible. 

The Robin Hood was published in 188 3. It was a mas- 
terpiece of writing for children, and incidentally a master- 
piece of printing and binding. Every detail had been 
carefully attended to by Howard Pyle himself. It was SO. 
beautiful a book, and so much care‘and expense had been 
lavished upon it, that its price had to be, unfortunately, too 
high for it to become at once a popular book. But’as time 
went by it sold in increasing numbers, and in the eyes of 
many has remained its author’s most perfect work. The 


[ 88 | 


BaRH 


2 


= 





WASHINGTON AND NELLIE CUSTIS 


From 
Tue First PresipentT oF THE UnitTeD STATES 


Harper's Magazine, 1896 





THE RETURN 


structure and peculiar charm of the book will be taken 
up in more detail in a later chapter, but it must be remem- 
bered here that with its publication Howard Pyle at once 
rose into the ranks of the foremost illustrators and writers 
for children. 

During the first years after the marriage, Mrs. Pyle 
spent the summers at Rehoboth, while Mr. Pyle worked in 
Wilmington, but every week-end and whenever there was 
a lull in his work, he would steal away to the shore. In 
Wilmington many things were accomplished: innumerable 
tales and fairy stories for Young People with delightful 
pen-and-inks to go with them; historical stories and pic- 
tures for Harper’s W eekly; and many heterogeneous illustra- 
tions for the Monthly. All this kept him fairly busy, but he 
was never one to waste a moment, no matter how much work 
he had done ina day. Every minute was filled with some- 
thing. Even while he was drawing he would have some 
one read to him whenever it was possible. In one letter 
he mentions the fact that he was having read aloud The 
Descent of Man—and this, too, when he was working on 
some of the most lovely pictures that were later to be in- 
cluded in The Wonder Clock. 

The studio which he was to use for the rest of his life was 
built in 1883. He had it erected on Franklin Street be- 
tween Delaware and Pennsylvania Avenues. He spent a 
great deal of time in planning it; it was to be just the studio 
that he had always dreamed of—large, practical, and 
comfortable. 

Although his reputation was now firmly established, 
although he was hailed on all sides as one of the coming 
masters of his craft, he still occasionally had hours of de- 


[ 89 | 


HOWARDYVPY LESS AsCHRONICLE 


pression which are very reminiscent of the early years in 
New York. On July 17, 1883, he wrote to Mrs. Pyle, 
who was at Rehoboth: “T sit hwre this evening a right up and 
down dlue man. Why am I so blue? That I can’t tell 
thee; thee knows how I get such spells upon me; one of 
them is upon me now. I have had a day of enforced— 
I might almost say—idleness through the failure of Har- 
pers to send the Higginson MS. that they must forward. 
Beside this, my drawing for Butler (the Philadelphia pub- 
lisher) has not turned out what I could have desired. It is 
too good to do over again and yet is almost too bad to send 
away. I want to get it out of the house for I hate the sight 
of it when I come into the studio. I don’t know whether it 
is the hot weather or whether it is thy being away that 
upsets me, or whether I am going backward in my work, but 
certainly it seems to me that I do not draw so well now as 
I did three months ago. I really am very much inclined to 
write to Mr. Parsons and ask him to send me away some- 
where on a trip so that I can get away from the jog-trot 
drudgery of manufacturing pictures for two or three weeks. 
If I have a change, perhaps I can tackle my work again with 
more vim and go when I come back to it again.” Then on 
the following day: “Bad luck today. No MS. from Har- 
pers. . . . Rubbed off from my picture that which I did 
yesterday, and think it looks better. I shall send it away 
tomorrow without touching it any more—I hope... . ” 
These spells, however, were never of long duration, and 
were the inevitable snares into which he could not help fall- 
ing. It was impossible for him to do such great quantities 
of work and at the same time to have such high critical 
faculties, without feeling a certain dissatisfaction with some 


[ 90 ] 


THE RETURN 


of the things which he produced. For the most part these 
years were very happy. His home life was delightful; there 
were children to enliven it, a. d all the time he could not be 
insensible to the leaps and bounds which his reputation was 
making. 


[91] 


CHAPTER V 
“MAGIC CASEMENTS” 


OWARD PYLE’S productions are so varied, cover- 

ing so many fields that are only slightly related to one 
another, that it has seemed best to treat separately in the 
majority of the remaining chapters each important phase of 
his work, rather than to attempt to give in chronological 
detail the record of his achievements. There are certain ad- 
vantages of clarity and order which must necessarily be lost, 
since it is impossible to cover the different aspects of his work 
in the proper sequence, but the greater distinctness given to 
his chief contributions, both to art and to literature, seems to 
warrant this departure from the time element. 

He had been in New York only a short time when he 
discovered that the greatest charm of his literary work lay 
in the deftness of its appeal to children. At first nearly all 
that he did was in the form of animal fables, many of which 
Mary Mapes Dodge accepted for St. Nicholas, and in which 
she undoubtedly recognized evidences of ability that would 
probably develop into a real power of writing for young 
people, for she encouraged him in fostering this talent, en- 
couraged him perhaps a little too much, for, as the diary 
letters show, he was almost tempted to devote himself ex- 
clusively to letters and allow his art to deteriorate. From 
this he was fortunately saved by the salutary influence of 
Church and some of his other early comrades, but the fact 


[ 92 | 


“MAGIC CASEMENTS” 


that he could write for children with a charm that was 
possessed by few men was always present in his mind. As 
time went by this ability increased, and with it he developed 
the power of drawing pictures to illustrate his children’s 
pieces, pictures that were as full of appeal to the young 
mind as were the stories themselves. Equipped with this 
double ability, he could always claim the attention of the 
children; all he needed was something to write about. 

Fairy tales had always fascinated him when he was a 
child. His mother had read to him all that could be found 
and he was saturated with their spirit. Now, when he in 
turn was about to provide amusement for children he harked 
back to his own childhood and remembered the great 
allurement which the land of faery had held. He delved 
into old, musty sources, he explored the mystery of the 
folk tale, and in this treasury of fanciful plots he found 
enough material to provide great quantities of entertain- 
ment, as well as considerable instruction which he never 
failed to make palatable. In one of the diary-letters under 
the date of November 26, 1876, he tells his mother about 
the host of ideas he has found, and incidentally gives a 
glimpee of his own enthusiasm for fairy tales: 

. 1 took Thorp’s Northern Mythology out of the 
Mercantile Library. It is a dry and prosy collection of 
medieval legends, many of which I have selected to make 
note of, and I shall try whether I can infuse a little fairy- 
tale juiciness into them. It is a rich mine to select from, 
though a dull book to read. It gives a full and complete 
account in a dry, pedantic manner of dwarfs, trolls, kabouter- 
mannekens, nixen, ghosts and goblins. I shall make note of 
a great many, hoping that some of these dry grains may 


[ 93 J 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


fall on ground rich enough to produce a full-grown fairy 
tale or two. As I have some time this Sunday I will jot 
down a couple of them, briefly, if it will not bore thee. 

“At an annual fair in Alsace when all was merry with 
dancing and gayety, three of the loveliest damsels the world 
ever saw made their appearance. Soon, each youth be- 
witched by their beauty left his own sweetheart and crowded 
around the fair strangers. One of the fairest of them took 
a zither and sang so ravishingly that the listeners held their 
very breaths at the enchanted music. When the clock in 
the church tower struck the hour of midnight, the three 
sisters hurried away through the moonlit forest glades and 
were quickly lost to sight. One youth was desperately smit- 
ten with love, and accordingly, when the three beautiful 
sisters appeared the following night at the village gate, he 
secured the glove of the most beautiful while she entered 
the dance with one of his comrades. When the hour of 
midnight arrived, the damsel cried, ‘Where is my glove?? 
‘I have it,’ cried the lucky youth, ‘and shall keep it as a 
favor from you.’ At this the damsel commenced to wail 
piteously, at the same time wringing her hands in agony. 
In spite of her cries, as the night was advancing, the two 
sisters dragged the third off, followed by the youth, who 
kept them in sight. At length they arrived at a stream deep 
in the midst of the forest, where two of the damsels in- 
stantly disappeared, while the third, falling on her knees, 
besought the youth for her glove, though in vain, for he 
still kept it. At that moment the cock crowed and the 
damsel instantly vanished with a scream, and imagine the 
youth’s horror when the brook instantly became filled with 


| 94 | 


“MAGIC CASEMENTS” 


blood. (Isn’t there something suggestive in that, don’t 
thee think? ) 

“These nixen are magic musicians and can play upon the 
violin so that the trees and stones will dance. A man de- 
siring to learn this wonderful performance brought, one 
St. John’s eve, to the mill, a black cock which he threw into 
the pond, he himself standing with his back to it. Soon the 
nixen came and touched his hand and the man could play as 
no one in the village could. He was not content with this, 
however; so the next St. John’s night he took a black cat 
and in a like manner threw it, too, into the mill pond. Soon 
the nixen came and touched his forearm, and now the 
man could play as no one in the world could. But even this 
did not content him; so next St. John’s night he took a black 
lamb and threw it into the pond. This time the nixen came 
and touched the man’s elbow and instantly his arm com- 
menced to work in spite of himself and he produced the 
most wonderful music that ever was heard. But when he 
would cease playing he found he could not. In spite of 
himself his elbow kept working and he continued playing. 
All that night and all the next day and all the following 
night he continued, until a swineherd who was a wise man 
came, and standing behind him cut the fiddle strings across; 
when he instantly ceased. From that moment, though, he 
lost all power of playing on the violin. (I confess I cooked 
this up a little, and with some additions, such, for instance, 
as his violin making everyone dance that heard it, until the 
swineherd, stopping his ears with wax, was able to cut the 
fiddle strings, it might make quite an amusing, as well as 
laughable, story. Don’t thee think so?) Il put in one 
more and if they bore thee too much thee needn’t read it. 


[95 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


“A maiden of Antwerp was wronged and deserted by a 
soldier. Meditating revenge, she consulted a wise woman 
who gave her a glass of white wine and, placing an ace of 
hearts upon it, directed the young woman to pierce the spot 
directly in the center with a needle. She did so and three 
drops of blood fell into the wine. That same night at the 
same hour the soldier, who was carousing with some of his 
companions, instantly fell dead and a deep wound was found 
in the region of his heart. (This might serve for an event 
if it were doctored up sufficiently; it is quaint as well as 
somewhat awful in its way, and I never heard a similar.) 

“But Dl not trouble thee farther, although some of the 
stories of trolls and kaboutermannekens are funny in the 
extreme, and could be woven, with some shaping, into amus- 
ing and quaint stories by combining two or three of them 
together. And what illustrations they would make! I 
think I see myself turned loose in a boundless wilderness of 
quaint dwarfs, ugly trolls, ridiculous kaboutermannekens, 
and lively elves, with here and there a spicy smack of the 
awful in the shape of a hobgoblin or two. Don’t I rather 
think I’?d do something? I can’t resist the temptation of 
telling one, just one story more. 

“A troll wife came to a peasant woman and begged the 
loan of a beer mug for a troll wedding that was to come 
off that night. The woman lent the measure to her upon 
the condition that she might witness the ceremony. The 
troll wife consented and told her when the clock struck 
twelve to peep down into a crack in the hearthstone, but 
by no means to speak or laugh. The woman did as she 
was told and saw the most wonderful sight. Within a 


[ 96 | 









aera Ge in a aa 





a 

















alge Ar 


” ; 
snl aS aie aE es int Fa a a 








ESCAPE OF ARNOLD: 
From 

GENERAL WASHINGTON 
Harper's Magazine, 1896 


s 





“MAGIC CASEMENTS” 


great apartment, the columns of which were of pure crystal, 
while gems and gold and silver spangled the walls, the 
trolls were making merry. They were quaint little fellows 
in gay jerkins and great, red, pointed caps. Every moment 
as the beer disappeared, the fun grew proportionately more 
uproarious. At length two of the dwarfs fell to quarreling 
and from that fell to blows, climbing up on the table to give 
freer swing to their arms. In the excitement of their fight 
they both eventually tumbled head over heels into a great 
bowl of soup. ‘Baxey and Waxey have tumbled into the 
soup bowl,’ cried the mannekens with shrieks of laughter, as 
the two miserable trolls clambered out of the well dripping 
with soup. They looked so comical that the woman, forget- 
ting herself, broke into a hearty laugh; at the moment every- 
thing disappeared, while she received a severe box on the 
ear. How excellently that might illustrate; the trolls 
carousing, the two little creatures tumbling into the soup 
bowl. Preserve us Moses! there goes twelve o’clock at 
night and here I sit needlessly chatting, not even recollect- 
ing that I have to take a bath this evening—good-night!” 

This extract is merely an example of the lure which fairy 
stories had for him. Naturally, when they were so de- 
lightful to him, he turned to them for the materials of some 
of his first work. In April, 1877, the story of “Hans 
Gottenlieb, the Fiddler,” the outline of which is well de- 
veloped in the selection from the diary-letters, was pub- 
lished in St. Nicholas, and with it began the long period of 
the writing of fairy tales. There followed for nine or ten 
years an almost never broken series of them, first in Sz. 
Nicholas, then in Harper's Young People, and finally in book 

| hoz 


HOWARDS PYLE ACCA RONICLE 


form. Although he turned his attention to many other 
kinds of work in the meantime, still the fairy stories con- 
tinued to pour forth. At first they were, like “Hans Gotten- 
lieb,” mere retellings of old legends; they were the old plots 
put into slightly more modern form. Gradually, however, 
he built up a technique of story telling; from the skeleton of 
an old folk tale he would develop a story, so replete with 
details, and so changed to suit his own ideals, that one could 
scarcely recognize the framework of the original tale. Then, 
finally, after so much experience in the school of adaptation, 
he launched out for himself, inventing his own plots. A 
fairy tale to him meant more than an impossible story, the 
scene of which was laid in a fanciful country where grotesque 
figures and fantastic deeds were the order of the day; all 
the old machinery of fairyland he used, to be sure, but with 
it he always combined a touch of the moral, never heavy and 
nearly always artistic. Such beautiful opportunities were 
offered in his world of make-believe for the propounding 
of useful, everyday bits of common sense, that he could not 
keep himself from including them. They came as naturally 
as “flies in the summer time,” as he humorously observes in 
regard to something else. 

The spirit of fairy tales was so embedded in his charac- 
ter, and with it the method of making a point by using them, 
that even in his correspondence he would occasionally intro- 
duce them. A lovely example, showing not only this, but 
also his kindly interest in all children and incidentally some- 
thing of his attitude toward himself, is afforded by a letter 
to a certain Mrs. Dickinson who had written requesting a 
picture of him for her children: 


[ 98 | 


“MAGIC CASEMENTS” 


“January 18, 1888. 
“My Dear Mrs. Dickinson: 

“A long while ago—March of last year—you wrote me 
a letter asking me for my photograph and autograph. My 
neglect to answer immediately arose not from indifference 
toward your request but because I had had no photograph 
taken for so long a time that I felt a reluctance toward 
having myself projected upon material cardboard, fearing 
the result. At last, however, I have had it done and such 
as it is I send it to you. I imagine to myself the little 
ones looking at it in far away Wisconsin. ‘What!’ they 
cry, ‘is that Howard Pyle? Why, he is bald! He is gray! 
and—yes—if one looks closely enough one finds lines at 
the corners of his eyes that the photographer has forgotten 
to obliterate with his pencil! 

“My dears, your mother would have me send you my 
photograph. I cannot nor being as Iam. Listen and Pl 
tell you a fable: 

“Once upon a.time in a country far away over the seas 
and mountains in the further borders of Nowhere, where 
little pigs run around ready roasted and apple pies grow in 
the trees and turkeys run around with cruets of oyster 
sauce on their backs and all the pebbles are marbles and 
candies can be had for the asking (and it’s a fine country 
I can tell you) there lived a people who had all that they 
wanted provided they didn’t want too much. 

“Now, nobody had ever seen the king of that country 
and this was why: . 

“First of all there was a grand and beautiful castle as 
big as I am and all made of gold and silver. 

“Then there was a room inside of the castle and the 


[ 99 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


carpets of the room were of silk and satin interwoven in 
beautiful patterns with threads of gold and silver, and the 
walls of the room were of moss agate and the windowpanes 
of diamonds, so that it was as fine a room as you ever saw 
in your little lives. 

“Then in the middle of the room was a table of ebony 
and gold, studded all over with pearls and sapphires and 
rubies and what not and I wish that I had one like it. 

“Then on the table was a golden casket which I would 
describe like the rest, only that my gold and jewels have 
given out! 

“‘And in the casket was the King and nobody had ever 
seen him. ‘He is the greatest and noblest king in all the 
world!’ said the people of Nowhere; but you know as 
well as I do why they said that. You do not? Why, I 
have just told you—it was because they had never seen him. 

“Well, one day a stranger came traveling into that land. 

“ “But what is your King like?’ said he. 

“We don’t know,’ said the people of Nowhere, ‘we never 
saw him.’ 

“‘T don’t believe there is a king, said the stranger. 

“Qh yes there is,’ said the people of Nowhere, ‘for yon- 
der is his palace and you can see it with one eye shut.’ 

“ “Yes,” said the stranger, ‘that’s all very well but there’s 
many a nutshell without a kernel,’ and then the stranger 
showed that he had more sense than he appeared to have. 

“The people of Nowhere were more silly than we are 
hereabouts, so that a few words like those that the stranger 
dropped were enough to set their heads a-buzzing. No, 
nothing would do them now but to see that same King of 
theirs; for it would be a pity if they should not be able 

[ 100] 


“MAGIC CASEMENTS” 


to tell what he was like if another stranger should come 
traveling that way asking foolish questions like this other. 
So one day the high state officers and the nobility and gentry 
went to pay a visit to the palace for the express purpose of 
seeing this King of theirs. 

“The High Councillor walked straight up to the golden 
casket and laid his hand upon it. He was dreadfully fright- 
ened but, all the same, he was bound to see to the bottom 
of the business, so he shut both eyes and opened the lid 
of the box. 

“Everybody held his breath and opened his eyes like 
saucers. 

“There was a rustle, a squeak, a whir and—out popped 
a little mouse no bigger than your thumb. 

“My dear children, it was a sight to see the people of 
Nowhere when a body said ‘King’ to them. When they 
said ‘King’ to themselves each thrust his tongue into his 
cheek and winked one eye. 

“But if you wish to know whether the King of Nowhere 
really was a mouse, or whether some wag had played a trick 
upon the good folk who came to the palace that day, you 
will have to ask somebody who knows more than I. 

“Anyhow, I can tell you this much for the truth and 
sure and certain: 

“It is best not to inquire too closely into a closed casket, 
for the people of Nowhere are not the only folk who have 
discovered that their King was only a mouse after all. 

“But all this has nothing to do with writing a letter and 
so, madam, I am 

“Yours very truly, 
“Flowarp Pyue.” 


[ror | 


' HOWARDIPYLE}\AGGHRONICE 


The pictures that he drew for his fairy stories were 
beyond comparison. As they appeared in the pages of St. 
Nicholas and Harpers Young People they made the illus- 
trations by other hands appear crude and commonplace. He 
had completely obliterated the “taint of vulgarity” and 
coarseness that had given him so much worry in the early 
days. 

These were pictures that defied analysis; they were 
crowded with haunting glimpses of glorious old castles, with 
jolly peasants whose faces shone with good humor, with 
princesses superbly beautiful and with quaint little gnomes 
and trolls, fascinatingly garbed in picturesque clothes. They 
were enough of themselves to endear him to the hearts of 
all the children who saw them. It was no wonder that his 
name became almost a household word with the younger 
generation. 

About the middle of 1883 he conceived the idea of writ- 
ing humorous verses, printing them out by hand and decorat- 
ing them with pen-and-ink drawings on the same page. In 
a letter to his wife he first mentions his scheme: “ .. . I 
wrote a verse for Harpers Young People which I propose 
making into a full page. If Harpers should take to it, as 
I hope they will, I propose writing a number of similar bits 
(say fifty) and turning them into a child’s gift book 
next Christmas a year, first publishing them in Young 
People. ...”* Wrarpers did like it; in fact they con- 
sidered it an excellent scheme. But it was a scheme fraught 
with difficulties for the artist; it was tedious and trying work. 
He wrote to Mrs. Pyle: “ ... This morning I started 
drawing that series of full-page pictures with verses that 

*To Mrs. Howard Pyle, July 8, 1883. 

[ 102 | 


“MAGIC CASEMENTS” 


I hope to do for Young People, to be published ultimately 
in book form. I told you yesterday how I hammered away 
at the verses and only hit one late in the afternoon. I hope 
that they may be successful. I did hard conscientious work 
today but got only a very little done. . . . This afternoon 
I had a sort of discouraged fit, for the work I was doing 
seemed so puetile and childish; but I feel differently now, 
for after all no work conscientiously done is ‘childish’”; * 


and later: “ 


. . . On Saturday I resumed work upon the 
illustrated verse. It progresses much more slowly than 
I had hoped. The printing of the letters of the text 
takes a long time and I had several setbacks through 
mistakes. ... ”” Finally, in spite of all these little difh- 
culties both of composition—for Howard Pyle always found 
the verse medium unwieldy—and of the manual strain 
of printing, twenty-four of the little verses were finished. 
They had appeared regularly in the magazine and had been 
uniformly successful with its readers. When the time came 
for gathering them into a book, it was concluded that a num- 
ber of stories of the typically humorous, fantastic sort should 
be combined with them, and they were to appear under the 
title of Pepper and Salt, or Seasoning for Young Folk. On 
July 28, 1885, Howard Pyle wrote to his wife: ““... I 
feel that the book is really shaping itself now. Everything 
seems to be going along smoothly and Harpers adopt all 
my suggestions. The only difference that seems to arise 
between us is in regard to the cost. I want it to be a cheap 
child’s book, but I am afraid the inclination with them is 
to make it rather expensive. I do hope they will not fall 
into the pit that Scribners and I did with Robin Hood.” 


*To Mrs, Howard Pyle, August 3, 1883. 
*To Mrs. Howard Pyle, August 5, 1883. 


[ 103 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


The book was published in 1886, the first of the author’s 
collections of fairy stories. Unfortunately, it was not very 
successful with the general public, perhaps because it was 
too costly, but it was, nevertheless, a genuine work of art, 
well arranged, bristling with good pictures, and sparkling 
with a quaint, kindly humor. Its main purpose was to pro- 
vide entertainment pure and simple; the morals added to 
the tales and verses increased rather than diminished the 
broad appeal. The preface in which Howard Pyle dram- 
atizes his own feelings and his desires was a genuine bit of 
inspiration, and since it gives so clearly the author’s spirit 
of intoxicating humor and the whole scope of the book, it is 
well worth quoting: 

“Here, my little man, you may hold my cap and bells, 
and you, over there, may hold the bauble! Now, then, 
I am ready to talk as a wise man should and am a giddy- 
pated jester no longer! 

“This is what I have to say: 

“One must have a pinch of seasoning in this dull, heavy 
life of ours; one should never look to have all the troubles, 
the labors, and the cares, with never a whit of innocent 
jollity and mirth. Yes; one must smile now and then, if 
for nothing else than to lift the corners of the lips in laugh- 
ter that are only too often dragged down in sorrow. 

“It’s for this that I sit here now, telling you all manner 
of odd quips and jests until yon sober wise man shakes his 
head and goes his way, thinking that I am even more of a 
shallow-witted knave than I really am. But, prut! Who 
cares for that? Iam sure that I do not if you do not. 

“Yet listen! One must not look to have nothing but 
pepper and salt in this life of ours—no, indeed! At that 


[ 104 ] 








ERN 


7 


IN THE OLD RALEIGH TA\ 


At Home 1n VIRGINIA 
Harper's Magazine, 1896 


From 


ers 
ey 
can 





“MAGIC CASEMENTS” 


rate we should be worse off than we are now. I only mean 
that it is a good and pleasant thing to have something to 
lend the more solid part a little savor now and then! 

“So, here DPI sit; and, perhaps, when you have been 
good children, and have learned your lessons or have done 
your work, your mother will let you come and play a little 
while with me. I will always be ready and waiting for you 
here, and I will warrant your mother that I will do you 
no harm with anything that I may tell you. If I can only 
make you laugh and be merry for a little while, then my 
work will be well done, and I will be glad in the doing of it. 

“And now give me my cap and bells again, for my wits 
are growing cold without them: and you will be pleased to 
reach me my bauble over there, for I love to have him 
by me. 

“Will you be seated? And you, over there, seat the 
baby on the grass! Are you ready? Very well: then I 
will tell you a story, and it shall be about the ‘Skilful 
Huntsman.’ ” 3 

Then from this delightful preamble, one is plunged at 
once into the pleasantries of fairyland. It is an admirable 
beginning, and done in a fashion that immediately capti- 
vates both the adult who may be reading aloud and the child 
who is listening. 

The style in which the stories are written is deserving 
of a word of praise. It is loose and rambling; there are 
no long and involved sentences, almost never a subordinate 
clause. It flows steadily along with no difficult decora- 
tions, no attempt to make the phrases tell a story in them- 
selves. The narrative is slowly unfolded; simply and with- 
out turnings one event leads up to another with such clear- 


[ 105 | 


HOWARD PYLE? VANCHRONICEE 


ness that the most immature mind can easily follow. Yet 
every word tells, every word is chosen with the precision that 
only a mind well acquainted with children, a mind initiated 
into the secrets of child life, could have. The author never 
nods to his grown-up readers as if to say “See how cleverly 
I do this,”—a trait which Professor Phelps condemns in 
Hendrik Van Loon. It would not be too high praise, when 
all these points are taken into consideration, to say that for 
its purpose the style is perfect. 

Pepper and Salt had not even made its appearance be- 
fore there began to be talk of another fairy book. Ina letter 
to his wife he first mentions it—the early part of the letter 
is wholly extraneous to the subject in hand, but is left un- 
touched because of its general interest: 

“ . .. I then went into Mr. Parsons’ room and told 
him that he must give me work to do as otherwise I would 
be at a standstill just now. The poor old gentleman told 
me that he had been so involved in the whirlpool of the 
Grant business that everything else was going to the dogs. 
He said that they were engaged upon twenty-two full page 
designs upon that subject; that they had interviewed Gen- 
eral Hancock and all those prominently concerned, had 
gathered every statistic and already had views of the pro- 
cesston drawn from the important points. 

“Tt struck me that this was a trifle previous and I asked 
Mr. Parsons what they would do if it rained. He said that 
they had thought of that—that the sky was not made a dead 
white but was tinted so they could turn it either into a clear 
day, a gentle shower, or a driving rain, as they chose. The 
crowd was depicted as carrying sun-umbrellas which could 
be changed into rain-umbrellas if the need should arise. 


[ 106 | 


“MAGIC CASEMENTS” 


“While in the room I saw another example of the Harper 
enterprise, a large engraved head of Gladstone and another 
of ‘Uncle’ Sammy J. Tilden. I asked if either of these 
great men were sick. Mr. Parsons said no, but there was no 
knowing when they might be as they were both growing 
old! I told him that I was glad that I was not hung in 
their picture gallery yet, for it was too suggestive of the 
graveyard. 

“After having my wishes for work granted I wandered 
down stairs. I felt that I had thoroughly exhausted Mr. 
Parsons and I longed for another victim to bore. Mr. Harry 
Harper was there. I haven’t seen him for a long time, but 
as I wasn’t sure whether he had been to Europe, or Cochin- 
China, or Weehauken, I felt a certain delicacy in con- 
_versing freely with him about it. He received me, so to 
speak, with open arms, insisted upon my sitting down and 
would have led me on to talk. However, all that I came 
to talk about was the business of Pepper and Salt. He 
agreed with me entirely that it ought not to be an ex- 
pensive book—said that he would like it not to cost over a 
dollar and a half. I don’t think, however, that it will 
be as cheap as that as they seem inclined to use a very fine 
grade of paper, the same as that used in Abbey’s Herrick. 
He asked me why I wasn’t looking to get out another book 
for Christmas a year. I told him that I was quite willing 
to do it, but that I did not want to crowd the mourners, so 
to speak. He replied that there was no crowding in the 
matter, whereupon his desire seemed whetted. .. . ”? 

A book was accordingly planned, but was not published 
until 1888. Again it was a collection of fairy tales, entitled 

*To Mrs. Howard Pyle, August 4, 1885. 


[ 107 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


The Wonder Clock, and was embellished with a series of 
twenty-four delightful little verses by the author’s sister, 
Miss Katherine Pyle. The stories were of the same general 
character as those which had made up Pepper and Salt, but 
the workmanship was, if anything, better. There was even 
more charm, even more polish, and a much greater variety 
in subject. According to the plan of the book, every hour 
brought forth a new tale from the dilapidated old Wonder 
Clock which stood in Time’s garret. Here again princesses 
and kings lived in the land of make-believe, the great Red 
Fox and Grandfather Mole talked with truly human 
sagacity. This book was an immediate success; its total lack 
of affectation made it an instant favorite. Howard Pyle him- 
self always considered it his best book of fairy tales. It is 
interesting to note that the book has continued to grow in 
popularity through the years rather than to diminish. Six 
times as many copies were sold in 1919 as in 1889. 

After the publication of the Wonder Clock there followed 
a period when the other phases of Howard Pyle’s genius 
kept him from turning his attention to the realms of faery. 
It was not until 1895 that the third and last book of this 
nature, Twilight Land, appeared. Although in many ways 
it was an excellent collection of tales, it seemed to lack the 
inspiration of the two preceding volumes. Laurence Hutton 
claimed that one of the stories, “The Talisman of Solomon,” 
was one of the best that the author had ever written, but 
this could hardly be said of the rest of the book. The old 
fairy-tale zest which had been the distinguishing feature 
of The Wonder Clock and Pepper and Salt had to a certain 
extent passed away; Howard Pyle’s mind was more oc- 
cupied with other things. Still, this is not a book to be con- 

[108 | 


“MAGIC CASEMENTS” 


sidered slightingly; it is, as has been said, a charming series 
of stories; it merely suffers because both The Wonder Clock 
and Pepper and Salt made their appearance before. 
Though Howard Pyle’s contribution to the literature of 
fairies came to an end with Twilight Land, the Garden Be- 
hind the Moon, which was published in the same year 1s, to 
be sure, in reality a fairy tale. It is something more, how- 
ever. It is an allegory, and it is the allegorical side of it 
that is striking, that completely eclipses the fairy-tale ele- 
ment. With his three books of fanciful tales, however, 
Howard Pyle established himself as a master of the form. 
His tales were written and illustrated with a perfection that 
can only be marveled at; the duality of his genius placed 
him head and shoulders above his contemporary rivals. And 
throughout all of his tales there are no crudities, no useless 
cruelties, no inharmonious or evilly suggestive scenes such as 
are to be found in so many purely mythical stories. As one 
grateful parent wrote him, “we never have to skip a word.” 
There is one other book which can be most conveniently 
treated here. It is A Modern Aladdin, which, while not 
strictly speaking a fairy tale, is so highly romantic, so de- 
liciously extravagant that it can easily be grouped with 
them. This is not primarily a child’s book; it has its strong- 
est appeal, perhaps, to young people in their teens, but it 
is quite capable of entrancing those who are much older. 
It is an account of the amazing adventures of a young 
French peasant whom the Comte de St.-Germaine, that mys- 
terious figure in polite French history, claimed as a nephew. 
In spite of the rapidity of the story, Howard Pyle had con- 
siderable difficulty in persuading anyone to aceept it. Mr. 
Burlingame would not have it for the newly founded Scrib- 


[109] 


HOW ARDURY LEA eG ONICLE 


ners Magazine. Mr. Alden was by no means anxious to 
place it in Harpers; finally, however, it was accepted by 
Flarper’s Bazar, where it appeared in 1891, gayly decorated 
with the most delicate pen-and-inks. The story reminds one 
irresistibly of Stevenson’s New Arabian Nights, so much so 
that it is most interesting to read in one of the letters of 
R. L. S. to Mrs. Charles Fairchild in March, 1892, “I 
thought Aladdin capital fun; but why, in fortune, did he pre- 
tend it was moral in the end? The so-called nineteenth cen- 
tury ou va-t-il se nicher? Tis a trifle, but Pyle would do 
well to knock the passage out, and leave his bogey tale a 
bogey tale, and a good one at that.” 

While it is true that the moral in this story could easily 
be left out, as Stevenson suggests, it is by no means so 
graceless as he would imply. It was there for the same rea- 
son that it figured in all the fairy tales. Howard Pyle 
found it impossible to resist the instinct that urged him to 
include it. Rather than blame him, let him be commended 
for having invariably done it with such exquisite finish. 


[ 110 ] 


CHAPTER VI 


THE MIDDLE AGES 


HERE 1s an appreciable link between Howard Pyle’s 

stories of fairyland and his work in the period of 
the Middle Ages, by which term is not meant neces- 
sarily the definite historical era which goes by that name, 
but a somewhat imaginary time when knights and ladies 
experienced unusual adventures, when chivalry was an unde- 
niable fact of society, when kings and princes found occasion 
to hobnob with less high-born individuals. The general 
spirit is very similar to that which finds its expression in 
The Wonder Clock; there is the same good humor, the 
same briskness and buoyancy, and the same keen interest 
in fanciful plots. But to these characteristics are added 
others: real historical personages figure actively, and the 
stories are based, at least partly, on materials which have 
been handed down from the Middle Ages themselves, on 
the great tradition of medievalism. Perhaps the nearest ap- 
proach to similarity, however, lies in the pictures which 
accompany each venture into the field. In them appear the 
same resplendent ladies, and knights in gorgeous armor, 
looking as if each has been transported from some fairy 
isle. Since the first of these books is the Robin Hood, and 
since in the preface Howard Pyle himself expresses the spirit 
of the book, it is quoted in full: 


Patera |c 


HOWARD (PYLE VAP CHRONICLES 


“You who plod so amid serious things that you feel it 
shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to 
mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think 
that life hath nought to do with innocent laughter that 
can harm no one; these pages are not for you. Clap to the 
leaves and go no farther than this, for I tell you plainly, 
that if you go farther you will be scandalized by seeing good, 
sober folks of real history so frisk and caper in gay colors 
and motley, that you would not know them but for the 
names tagged to them. Here is a stout lusty fellow with 
a quick temper, yet none so ill for all that, who goes by 
the name of Henry II. Here is a fair, gentle lady before 
whom all the others bow and call her Queen Eleanor. 
Here is a fat rogue of a fellow, dressed up in clothes of a 
clerical kind, that all the good folk call my Lord Bishop of 
Hereford. Here is a certain fellow with a sour temper 
and a grim look—the worshipful, the Sheriff of Notting- 
ham. And here, above all, is a great, tall, merry fellow 
that roams the greenwood and joins in homely sports, and 
sits beside the Sheriff at merry feast, which same bears 
the name of the proudest of the Plantagenets—Richard of 
the Lion’s Heart. Besides these there are a whole host of 
knights, priests, nobles, burghers, yeomen, pages, ladies, 
landlords, beggars, pedlars, and what not, all living the 
merriest of merry lives and all bound by nothing but a few 
odd strands of certain old ballads (snipped and chipped and 
tied together again in a score of knots) which draw these 
jocund fellows here and there, singing as they go. 

“Here you will find a hundred dull, sober, jogging 
places, all tricked out with flowers, and what not, till no 
one would know them in their fanciful dress. And here 


mae || 








Boies 


BE 


= 








ARRIVAL OF STUYVESANT IN NEW AMSTERDAM 


From 


CoLonirs AND NATIONS 
Harper's Magazine, 1901 


ey 





THE MIDDLE AGES 


is a country bearing a well-known name, wherein no chill 
mists press upon our spirits, and no rain falls but what rolls 
off our backs like April showers off the backs of sleek drakes; 
where flowers bloom forever and birds are always singing; 
where every fellow hath a merry catch as he travels the 
roads, and ale and beer and wine (such as muddle no wits) 
flow like water in a brook. 

“This country is not Fairy land. What is it? °Tis the 
land of Fancy, and is of that pleasant kind that, when you 
tire of it —whisk!—you clap the leaves of this book to- 
gether and ’tis gone, and you are ready for everyday life, 
with no harm done. 

“And now I lift the curtain that hangs between here and 
No-man’s-land. Will you come with me, sweet Reader? I 
thank you. Give me your hand.” 


The book appeared in 1883 and was enthusiastically re- 
ceived by artists and writers on both sides of the Atlantic. 
As Joseph Pennell says in his Graphic Arts: “The book made 
an enormous sensation when it came out here and even im- 
pressed greatly the very conservative William Morris, who 
thought up to that time . . . nothing good artistically could 
come out of America.” In it you can almost breathe the 
air of a romantic Sherwood; you feel irresistibly that the 
life portrayed, while not precisely real, is so crowded with 
human incidents that as an imaginary state of things it 
was quite possible in early England, and absorbingly pleasant 
to read about. Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, Will 
Scarlet, all are intensely human personages, yet all move in 
an atmosphere that is brimming with fanciful notions. 

The basis of the book lies in two collections of old ballads 


[113] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


which have been mentioned before—Percy’s Reliques of 
Ancient English Poetry, and Ritson’s Robin Hood. Howard 
Pyle took the old ballads, read and re-read them, became 
thoroughly conversant with every detail of plot and char- 
acter that could be drawn from them. Then he set about 
the writing of his own book, bringing into harmonious play 
all the many sides of his own genius. Every character 
was humanized, the settings were made vivid and natural, 
new details of plot were added to bring the various epi- 
sodes into clear relation with one another. The style is 
a very successful adaptation of archaic English, not so com- 
plex as to be hard to read, but sufficiently antique to lend the 
charm of age to the narrative. The descriptions of the 
countryside are superb; take for example this one: “The 
high-road stretched white and dusty in the hot summer 
afternoon sun, and the trees stood motionless along the 
roadside. All across the meadows the hot air danced and 
quivered, and in the limpid waters of the lowland brook, 
spanned by a little stone bridge, the fish hung motionless 
above the yellow gravel, and the dragon fly sat quite still, 
perched upon the sharp tip of a spike of rushes, with its 
wings glistening in the sun.” What could give more ac- 
curately the spirit of listlessness of a hot summer’s after- 
noon? The whole book is full of such passages, ideal in 
their simplicity and their truth. The most striking feature 
of the text, however, is the never-failing action; one ex- 
citing incident after another is related, each with an eye to 
the dramatic. It is a banquet of adventure that never palls 
on any child and in which grown-ups secretly find a great 
pleasure when they read it aloud to their children. 
[ 114 | 


THE MIDDLE AGES 


But perhaps the greatest charm of the book lies in its 
pictures. The large, full-page plates tell in full the story 
of Robin Hood, while delightful vignettes and highly 
decorative initial letters add glowing details. They were 
all done in pen and ink with consummate mastery. They 
are spirited and intimate; they illustrate the narrative with- 
out anywhere introducing a false note; they add to the text 
and never for a moment distract the attention. Yet the 
text would be incomplete without them. The only adverse 
criticism is perhaps that of Joseph Pennell in the statement, 
“Howard Pyle has given . . . in Robin Hood some beauti- 
ful ideas of a country he does not know.” Be that as it 
may, a country was created which not only made a suitable 
. setting for the story, but which seems today to be the ideal 
one for just that kind of imaginative literature. It is the very 
lack of realism that lends the proper tone of enchantment. 

The ballads and songs which figure pleasingly throughout 
Robm Hood are largely Howard Pyle’s own, although in 
a number of cases they are taken from Percy. He never 
looked back on these or on any other of his verse productions 
with any degree of satisfaction. The verse-medium, he 
thought, did not suit him. Yet some of them are graceful 
and light, with here and there a really lyric note, as in this 
song of Allan-a-Dale: 


“Gentle river, gentle river, 
Bright thy crystal waters flow, 
Sliding where the aspens shiver, 


Gliding where the lilies blow, 


“Singing over pebbled shallows, 
Kissing blossoms bending low, 
Breaking ’neath the dipping swallows, 
Purpling where the breezes blow, 


(ane 


HOWARD PYLE? Sar CHRONICLE 


“Floating on thy breast forever - 
Down thy current I could glide; 
Grief and pain should reach me never 
On thy bright and gentle tide. 


“So my aching heart seeks thine, love, 
There to find its rest and peace, 
For, through loving, bliss is mine, love, 
And my many troubles cease.” 


While there are spots in these lines which are obviously 
not from the pen of a cultivated poet, the whole serves ad- 
mirably as a song from Allan-a-Dale, and is instinct with 
lyricism. 

Many years later in replying to one of the many letters 
from the host of his child admirers, for, busy as he was, 
he almost never failed to answer these notes of commenda- 
tion, Howard Pyle said that in looking back on his past 
work he felt that the Robin Hood was probably the only 
book of his which could in any sense be called a classic. 
There is no doubt today that Robin Hood deserves the rank 
he gives it; the only question is whether or not there are 
others which might be equally worthy of such opinions. 
Although the book was not immediately popular with the 
reading public at large, it gradually, slowly for a year or 
two and then very rapidly, grew to be one of the best 
sellers for children. By 1902, it was so well known and 
so appreciated, that the publishers—Charles Scribner’s 
Sons—brought out a curtailed edition for schools, which 
has been used with great success throughout the country. 

Otto of the Silver Hand, which was published in 1888, 
the same year which saw the birth of The Wonder Clock, 
is the second story of the Middle Ages. This time, however, 
the locale is changed; medieval Germany is the scene of the 


[ 116 | 


THE MIDDLE AGES 


action. It is the story of the adventures of a brave little 
fellow, living in the strenuous times of the baronial robbers 
who made the Rhineland a place of terror. Little Otto 
suffers nobly from the effects of the warfare between his 
father and a neighboring baron. Through it all he is un- 
spoiled, he remains sweet and kindly. As a character, he is 
drawn with a precision of touch that cannot be equaled even 
in Robin Hood; he is a real child and one that unfailingly 
attracts the sympathy of other children. The impression 
which this story made is admirably shown in a letter from 
Hjalmar H. Boyesen,’ dated January 12, 1889: 

«| | | There isa note in your book—strong, wholesome, 
and sympathetic—far removed from sentimentality—but 
vibrating with true sentiment—in short it is a lovely book. 
The scene on the bridge where Baron Konrad calls out to 
his enemy Baron Henry: ‘You were brave enough to cut 
off the hand of a little child; are you now brave enough to 
meet his father?? (or words to that effect) thrilled my 
boys. They shed a few furtive tears; and I am not sure 
but that their papa kept them company. It has the true 
dramatic ring; it is strong, self-restrained art. | 

“To me the illustrations seem marvelously done by a 
kind of historic second sight—or artistic divination—I don’t 
know which. I know no children’s book which I have 
enjoyed half so much... . ” 

It is particularly of the drawings of this book and their 
Diireresque qualities that Joseph Pennell speaks so en- 
thusiastically in his Pen Drawing and Pen Draughtsmen: 

“The most superficial comparison of Pyle’s composition 

1The Norwegian-American novelist and littérateur, author of Falconberg, 


Goethe and Schiller, etc. 


[117] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


and handling with Direr’s will show what a careful 
student the nineteenth-century American is of the sixteenth- 
century German. I admit, with certain American critics 
whom I respect, that in some qualities it is very hard to tell 
where Diirer ends and Howard Pyle begins. In his Ozto 
of the Silver Hand, for example, there are compositions 
which are almost entirely suggested by Diirer. But who has 
not made use of the suggestions of other men? That Pyle 
should do this in telling and illustrating a medieval tale, 
merely proves his ability to saturate himself with the spirit 
of the age in which the scenes are laid, and to give his 
work the color and character of the biggest man of that 
age... . ” Andagain:“ . . . On looking through How- 
ard Pyle’s Otto of the Silver Hand, one finds the little 
tailpieces there have much the same motives and are carried 
out in much the same spirit, and yet are altogether original 
in subject, while they are reproduced mechanically with 
an ease that would have surprised Diirer. There is prob- 
ably no draughtsman as successful as Howard Pyle in work- 
ing in the manner of the sixteenth-century artists, always, 
however, adding something of his own. His medieval 
tales have given him good reason to adhere to the old 
models. The book I have just mentioned would not have 
been so appropriately illustrated with designs less conven- 
tional in treatment and more modern in feeling; the full 
pages, though reproduced by process, look like old wood 
blocks; the head and tailpieces might be mistaken at a glance 
for Diirer’s. But that Pyle knows how utterly out of place 
these designs would be in books relating to other periods 
is proved by the very different methods he employs for other 
subjects. His Pepper and Salt gives an excellent idea of the 
[118] 


THE MIDDLE AGES 


great extent of his knowledge and his perfect understanding 
of the limitations and possibilities of the decoration of a 
Degen.” 

These quotations from Mr. Boyesen and from Mr. Pen- 
nell show the appreciation of a literary man and of an artist. 
Needless to say, the book was at once a success, and has re- 
mained very popular. It shows, perhaps, more insight into a 
child’s life, more sympathy with and more understanding 
of the trials of childhood, and at the same time it is a piece 
of work more serious in tone than the Robim Hood or the 
fairy books. It does not have the same playful humor and 
the light fantasy, but succeeds altogether on account of the 
unerring truth of its character portrayal and the poignant 
feeling of pathos which is never for a moment allowed to 
grow commonplace. 

The next book to be grouped with these is Men of Iron, 
a stirring tale of England in the troublous times of Henry 
IV. It is pure adventure, full of resounding arms, of tour- 
naments, and knightly feats. Here there is little fancy; 
it is a romantic tale, which none the less gives a nearly ac- 
curate picture of the period. Myles Falworth, the son of 
a former supporter of the deposed Richard, regains through 
his own valor and nobility a position equal to that of his 
father, who had suffered as an adherent to the old order 
after the insurrection against Henry. It is a story to make 
any boy’s ambition surge; true worth is the only criterion by 
which judgments are made; Myles makes his way solely 
through his own merits. Howard Pyle has shown his sense 
of fitness by making of it a straightforward story, vigorous 
and manly. The “strenuous life” of America is carried 
back to medieval England. Although it lacks the subtle 


[ 119 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


artistry of The Wonder Clock, of the Robin Hood, or of 
Ozto, it has, since its publication in 1892, been among the 
most popular of its author’s productions. This is probably 


i 





From 

TOM CHIST AND THE 
TREASURE BOX 

Harper’s Round Table, 1896 





due to the fact that it is a racing, adventurous tale, and 
that it appeals to a greater number of people than do the 
more exquisite perfections of the fanciful books. 

[ 120 | 


THE MIDDLE AGES 


The illustrations to Men of Iron mark a great change. 
The pen-and-ink work which had been so successfully used 
in each of the preceding books was abandoned, and black- 
and-white oil reproduced by photographic process was used 
in its stead. They were very suitable pictures for the book. 
With this new medium Howard Pyle was able to get a more 
solid, a more realistic effect than could have been obtained 
with pen-and-ink, for the delicate lines of Pepper and Salt 
would have been out of place in this story of combat and 
bloodshed. At the time when the book appeared he was 
working on some illustrations for a new edition of Oliver 
Wendell Holmes’s Autocrat of the Breakfast Table—he 
had already made pictures for several of Holmes’s books— 
and he sent a copy of his latest production to the doctor. 
The note of appreciation from Dr. Holmes is very inter- 
esting, as coming from one of the oldest American men of 
letters then living: 


“November 9, 1893. 
“My Dear Mr. Pyle: : 

“T have received some time ago your little book, Men of 
Iron. J have not read the story—lI do not pretend to read 
the books sent me—it would take all and more than all of 
my time to do it. But I have looked at the illustrations 
which seem to me unusually fine. I have seen no book 
with such striking illustrations for a long while. There is 
none of the hurried slap-dash air which is so common since 
the ‘impressionists’ have splashed their colors about on the 
canvas, but honest work and careful study. 

“I am very much pleased with my little book, which I 
think proves generally acceptable. The ‘One Hoss Shay’ 


pier 3] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


is admirable and many of the pictures are suggestive and 
effective. That old witch in the Essex woods comes before 
me whenever I drive through the favorite road which goes 
from Manchester to Essex. 

“T am thankful that my other poems fell into such good 
hands—I know the risk one runs in having a poem ‘illus- 
trated’ by persons who will not take the trouble to enter into 
the author’s idea and often utterly misrepresent him. 

“Thanking you for all your good scenes and the very 
handsome book, I am, my dear sir, 

“Very sincerely yours, 


“OriveER WENDELL Ho.MEs.” 


With these pictures of the Middle Ages, especially those 
for Men of Iron, which so admirably interpreted the spirit 
of the period, Howard Pyle gained a nation-wide reputa- 
tion as a medievalist. So far-reaching was this fame, in 
fact, that he was desired on all sides to illustrate articles 
and tales which would give him an opportunity of using 
this talent. First it was Bret Harte’s “Birds of Cirencester” 
in Scribner’s for January, 1898, and some Don Quixote 
pictures in the Centwry in 1901. About 1900, or a little 
after, great improvements in the methods of color repro- 
duction were made, and he began to turn his attention to 
paintings in full colors. For Harper's he began a series of 
illustrations for medieval stories, many of which came from 
the pen of James Branch Cabell. These pictures with their 
gorgeous harmonies of brilliant colors made a lasting im- 
pression both on the publishers and on the public. Their 
tendency was to minimize his earlier work—the pen-and- 
inks and the black-and-white oils—in favor of these new 

[122] 


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First Sketch for 


VIEWING THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL 
Harper's Magazine, 1901 





as 


THE MIDDLE AGES 


and lavish creations. Part of a letter dated October 9, 
1903, from Mr. Thomas B. Wells, the present editor of 
Harper’s Magazine, in which most of these pictures were 
published—the management of the Harper house had un- 
dergone radical changes in the two or three preceding 
years—best shows the appreciation with which they were 
greeted. He refers to some paintings for the story “The 
Stairway of Honor” by Maud Stepney Rawson: 

“J have wondered so often at the beauty of your work 
and have always felt so great an enthusiasm for it, that it 
is difficult for me to say more of these particular pictures 
than I have said of others. Yet they do seem to me by far 
the most beautiful, the most sympathetic and the most lively 
illustrative pictures that you have done. They offer ample 
evidence in every way of the great care which you say you 
have put into their making. Such pictures give a true, 
artistic distinction to the magazine—and that is what we 
are all striving for. 

“Mr. Duneka is quite as enthusiastic over the pictures as 
I am and has asked me to express to you his great appreci- 
ation of them. He was particularly pleased with your in- 
terpretation of the heroine, combining as it does real, 
womanly beauty with a thoroughly artistic treatment. . . . ” 

This enthusiasm on the part of Harpers, interpreting as 
it did the feeling of the reading public, was an expression of 
the great interest in romance which was so prevalent in the 
early years of the twentieth century, an interest which had 
been largely created by Maurice Hewlett, Stanley Weyman, 
and others, to which the vogue of Stevenson had added 
power, and which had in popularity almost obscured the 
valiant efforts for realism made by William Dean Howells 


[ 123.] 


HOW ARDUPY LES aC RONICLE 


and Hamlin Garland. Howard Pyle himself distrusted 
this popular approval. While he was pleased with his 
first sets of romantically medieval pictures, he felt that to 
repeat them again and again would be very dangerous. 
There was too great a similarity in them; he was frankly 
afraid of destroying his artistic usefulness through allow- 
ing himself to become identified with this pseudo-romantic 
movement. He did not object to making pictures which 
gave him the opportunity to interpret faithfully and sin- 
cerely the Middle Ages as he conceived them, but he felt 
a decided aversion to illustrating stories of what he con- 
sidered the “‘fake medieval type.” 

Mr. Wells, early in 1904, wrote him as follows: “Here 
is the article for Christmas—Mark Twain’s ‘tribute to Joan 
of Arc. ... It seems to me one of the most beautiful 
and finished of the serious things which he has written. 
It may interest you to know that in his letter accompanying 
the manuscript he speaks of you as the one man in this 
or any other country who can make pictures for it. You 
will notice that in the last paragraphs of the article he gives 
a pretty clear idea of Ais picture of Joan of Arc, quite differ- 
ent from Bastien-Lepage’s heavy picture in the Metropoli- 
tan....” Howard Pyle, of course, accepted this com- 
mission without hesitation; here was a chance to be strictly 
honest with his medieval designs. By June the pictures 
were completed; there were four of them. Mr. Wells 
wrote in acknowledging them: “ ... Both as paintings 
and as illustrations they seem to all of us here by far the 
most important and serious work that we have had from 
you. Your conception of Joan is so much more charming 
and spiritual than that of Lepage—so much more as I am. 


[ 124 ] 


TIHE MIDDLE AGES 


sure she was, and as Mr. Clemens has seen her... . ” 
In reply to this note, thanking Mr. Wells for his words of 
praise, Howard Pyle concluded with the postscript, “Again 
let me urge you not to send me too much medieval work.” 
But the popularity of these pictures was too great for them 
to be discontinued; and it must be admitted that in spite of 
the artist’s objections many of them were imaginatively and 
technically excellent, for example the one illustrating 
Cabell’s story “In Necessity’s Mortar,” concerning which 
the author wrote him: “ . . . I don’t know when I have 
seen anything I liked so well as the painting of Villon in 
the October Harper. The verve of him! the cleverness! 
and with it all the irremediable baseness! I only wish the 
text suggested it.” 

These successes, however, did not: reconcile him to a 
continued application to strictly medieval work. On April 
23, 1907, he wrote to Mr. Wells: “ ... I am in great 
danger of grinding out conventional magazine illustrations 
for conventional magazine stories. I feel myself now to be 
at the height of my powers, and in the next ten or twelve 
years I should look to do the best work of my life. I do 
not think that it is right for me to spend so great a part of 
my time in manufacturing drawings for magazine stories 
which I cannot regard as having any really solid or perma- 
nent literary value. Mr. Cabell’s stories, for instance, are 
very clever, and far above the average of magazine litera- 
ture, but they are neither exactly true to history nor exactly 
fanciful, and, whilst I have made the very best illustrations 
for them which I am capable of making, I feel that they 
are not true to medieval life, and that they lack a really 

[125] 


HOWARD RYLE.  ASCHRONIGELE 


permanent value such as I should now endeavor to present 
fosthe avon. Gye eae 

This was a sincere plea for a change in the character of 
the work asked of him, and the request was granted. From 
that time, although occasionally he did make paintings for 
medieval stories, his real attention was turned to other 
phases of his work. The colored pictures of the romantic 
Middle Ages, however, were, with the exception of the pirate 
scenes, Which will be discussed in the next chapter, the out- 
standing feature of his work in the period that followed the 
turn of the century. Yet he himself always felt that they 
were not particularly good examples of his ability. They 
were, in his opinion, inaccurate and stilted, and all were 
tainted with a pervading sameness. His view is not wholly 
justified by the pictures, but there is in it a certain kernel 
of truth. 

During these years, however, he had the opportunity of 
making a set of pictures in which he could use his knowledge 
of the Middle Ages to the very best advantage. Mr. Henry 
H. Harper, representing the Bibliophile Society, of which 
Howard Pyle was a member, requested that he make a 
series of illustrations for Thomas Frognall Dibdin’s The 
Bibliomania or Book-Madness, which the society was about 
to publish for its members in an extremely luxurious edi- 
tion. These pictures, when completed, were such magnifi- 
cent examples of his work that it was determined to issue a 
portfolio of them, each one etched by Mr. W. H. W. Bick- 
nell, to be distributed only among the members of the 
society. When they appeared in 1903 they met with un- 
precedented success: they were not only illustrations, they 
were paintings of the first order, and were greeted as such 


[ 126 | 


THE MIDDLE AGES 


by the critics. In them there is again the similarity to Diirer, 
but the outstanding characteristic is Howard Pyle at his 
best, Howard Pyle painting something that he loves and 
putting himself thoroughly into it. He considered the 
“Friar Bacon” as the best of the pictures from the technical 
point of view, but admitted that the “Caxton” was the best 
subject. Their popularity among connoisseurs is well at- 
tested by the fact that they are being continually sought for 
throughout book and art stores today. 

After the success of Robin Hood, it evidently occurred to 
Howard Pyle that something of the same nature might 
be done for King Arthur, and when, nearly twenty years 
after the publication of that first success, he continued to 
receive letters from devoted admirers begging him to write 
a book dealing with the Arthur legend, he finally wrote to 
Scribners on March 3, 1902: 

“It has been suggested to me that I write a book some- 
what matching the Robin Hood but giving the adventures 
of King Arthur and his Knights. The suggestion has been 
lying in my mind for some time and the more I think over 
it the more feasible the project seems to me to be. It should, 
I think, be written in the same direct and homely English 
of the Robin Hood but with a more mature and poetic 
finish. As the Robin Hood was my first work I should, 
probably, make this the last of its kind... . ” 

Scribners, in spite of the fact that they already had three 
Arthur books on their list, fell in with the idea at once, 
saying that they could “easily imagine that Howard Pyle 
might give a distinction both of form and of substance to 
the Arthur legend which would detach it decidedly from 
all other books dealing with the same subject.” Accord- 


[127] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


ingly, the work was begun, and arrangements were made 
with Sz. Nicholas for it to appear first as a serial in that 
periodical. 

It was necessarily somewhat slow work. There had to 
be a great deal of research and a great deal of thinking; 
Malory had to be studied intelligently and persistently; 
and the problems of characterization were not easily solved. 
Then also he found the amount of material so colossal that 
the original plan of three volumes at the most had to be 
changed for one that included a fourth. One of the diffi- 
culties that beset him is explained in a letter he wrote some- 
what later to Edith Dean Weir: 

“‘ , . . I have had great trouble in treating the character 
of Sir Gawaine to fit it to the purposes which I have in view. 
I wish to represent in my book all that is noble and high 
and great, and to omit, if it is possible, all that is cruel and 
mean and treacherous. Unfortunately the stories of chivalry 
seem to be very full not only of meanness and of treachery, 
but of murder and many other and nameless wickednesses 
that discolor the very noblest of the characters—such, even, 
as the character of King Arthur himself. In the more gen- 
erally accepted histories, the characters of Sir Gawaine and 
his brothers do not seem, unfortunately, to be worthy of 
the high tribute which you pay to the chief hero of the 
group. I must follow the thread of the better-known leg- 
ends, for it is not advisable for me to draw upon the less 
well-known narratives. So I try to represent those which 
ate known in the best possible light. Accordingly, I try to 
represent Gawaine as proud and passionate, quick to anger, 
but with a broad basis of generosity and nobility as an 
underlying stratum of his nature. 


[ 128 ] 


PHE MIDDEE AGES 


“I wish, for instance, that I could forget that part of the 
narrative that tells of the mean and treacherous way in 
which Gawaine and his brothers killed King Pellinore for 
no other reason than their jealousy for his splendid knight- 
hood, and murdered Sir Lamorack for the same reason, 
knowing that they themselves would receive no punishment 
because of their close kinship with King Arthur. Such acts 
as these I know were only characteristic of the dark and 
bloody Middle Ages, so I have tried to modernize Sir 
Gawaine, losing as little as possible of his general character- 
istics as I understand them from the most universally 
accepted narratives, and making him a brave and noble 
knight in the modern sense. 

“I wish in these stories that I could write half a dozen 
books instead of the three volumes to which I must neces- 
sarily limit myself; for in three books one can only touch 
upon a comparatively few of the voluminous and multi- 
tudinous incidents of the Arthurian narrative. One can only 
take the direct thread, as it were, and string one’s stories 
upon it. One can only narrate, and one must tell the direct 
narrative, treating it with as much original incident as 
possible.” 


But in spite of the difficulties of handling and in spite 
of the thousand and one other calls on his eneroy, the 
Arthur story grew. On February 12, 1903, he wrote to 
Scribners, “My book of King Arthur is pretty well along 
in the writing. Quite half of it has been written. ... ” 
By September 7th the text was completed and all of the 
pictures with the exception of a few tailpieces had been sent 


[ 129 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


to the publishers. The book itself made its appearance in 
time for the Christmas trade. 

The remaining volumes of the series were not published 
in rapid succession, but for various reasons, largely the 
press of his work with Harpers and his new interest in 
mural decoration, were spread out over the next seven 
years. I'he Story of the Champions of the Round Table 
appeared in 1905, The Story of Sir Launcelot and his 
Companions in 1907, and The Story of the Grail and the 
Passing of Arthur in 1910. As a new form of the 
Arthurian legend these books have been signally popular. 
They give in a complete way a very straightforward and 
easy account of most of the adventures of the different 
knights. There are everywhere present in them the marks 
of good taste which were always characteristic of Howard 
Pyle. The pictures were all done in pen-and-ink and many 
of them, especially those in the first two volumes, are superb 
in their stateliness and grandeur. One needs only to see such 
pictures as “Two Knights do battle before Camilard” and 
“King Arthur findeth ye old’ woman in ye hut” to catch 
the delightful spirit of ancient romance that colors the whole 
Arthurian narrative; and the portrait pictures of the im- 
portant characters are nearly always vigorous, strong, and 
full of meaning, as, for example, the one of Merlin. But 
as a whole, the books lack something of the compelling 
power of the earlier stories. They do not have the warmth 
and fire of Robin Hood and Men of Iron. 

All these books, from the Robin Hood to the last of the 
Arthur stories, constitute a collection of medieval story 
which has been a growing delight to children for the past 
four decades, and which is a princely heritage for the 


[130] 





Aermsanoniganrn es °° 





- 





Second sketch for 


VIEWING THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL 


Harper's Magazine, 1901 


THE MIDDLE AGES 


children of the future. As an expression of Howard Pyle’s 
own feeling in regard to these productions and the impor- 
tance which they held in comparison with the other fields 
of his endeavor, a paragraph from a letter to Merle 
Johnson is eminently fitting: 

“My ambition in days gone by was to write a really 
notable adult book, but now I am glad that I have made 
literary friends of the children rather than older folk. In 
one’s mature years, one forgets the books that one reads, 
but the stories of childhood leave an indelible impression, 
and their author always has a niche in the temple of memory 
from which the image is never cast out to be thrown into 
the rubbish-heap of things that are outgrown and outlived.” 


[131] 


CHAPTER VII 


“THE BLOODY OUAKia 


* O YOU recall the night when I was at your 
house in Wilmington and you showed me that 

fine collection of ‘buccaneer’ books which you had on your 
shelves? Since then in pictures and in your writings I have 
often been reminded of that golden vein—and now that I 
look out on the Caribbean from my window in this Hacienda 
I feel strongly the echoes of the old life which you have 
made so real to the imagination. . . . ” These lines writ- 
ten to Howard Pyle from Porto Rico, in 1907, by S. W. 
Marvin, who had been for years a close friend through his 
connection with Scribner's, tell in a few words almost the 
whole story of the pirate pictures and tales. Howard Pyle” 
interest in buccaneers and marooners was a gradual growth; 
it had in it something akin to the fascination which historical 
research held for him, but it was animated by a more 
romantic feeling, by an emotional impetus, as it were. 
Pirates and their adventurous lives held a strange attraction 
for him; he was never more content than when he had 
found some half-forgotten account of a notorious buccaneer, 
and had plenty of time to spend in an examination of it. 
For fifteen or sixteen years after his marriage a part of 
nearly every summer was spent in Rehoboth, the little sea- 
side town a few miles south of Cape Henlopen which has 
been mentioned several times before. During the early 


[ 132 ] 


Bese bLOODY OUARERY 





years he could never give up more than a week or two from 
the round of picture-making in Wilmington, but later, when 
he had become a recognized power in American illustration 
and was thus more confident of his abilities, he would go 





8 TOM CHIST AND THE 
tX>~ TREASURE BOX 
Harper's Round Table, 1896 


to Rehoboth for the entire summer, taking with him John 
Weller, his model and general handyman, and there he 
would work, carrying on the tradition of his pictures with- 
out interruption. The Pyle family lived in a big green 
cottage which belonged to Mrs. Pyle’s mother. The cottage 


[ 133 ] 


HOWARD. PYLE VMANCLRONTCIE 


directly overlooked the ocean; there was an immense 
veranda where one could sit watching the ocean roll up the 
gently sloping, golden-sanded beach. These were joyous 
summers; the life was simple and refreshing, full of the 
most cherished companionships with his children. There is 
a pleasant little account of these days, written after Howard 
Pyle’s death by a pseudonymous Miss Seventeen in the 
New York Evening Post, in 1911, which gives with admi- 
rable fidelity a picture of Rehoboth and the Pyles: 

“, .. The scene is a bit of Delaware coast, level; 
glistening sand, rolling breakers, a narrow boardwalk, and 
as a background a row of unpretentious cottages. From one 
of these issues a man in a bathing suit, carrying on his 
shoulder a baby, who clutches his hair and crows delightedly. 
A dash across the beach, a plunge into the breakers, several 
dips in the curling foam, and then another dash back again 
to deliver a happy two-year-old to a waiting nurse maid. 

“The man was Howard Pyle, the baby his youngest 
daughter Eleanor; the scene, the daily performance that 
delighted the bathers.on the beach and those on Rehoboth 
porches. 

“When this pleasant picture flashed into the light, it 
proved merely the forerunner of many others in which the 
artist was the chief figure. For of all the acquaintances 
made by a girl of these days in a happy summer holiday, it 
is Mr. Pyle who stands chief among them. She had come 
to Rehoboth more than well acquainted with his books. 
Pepper and Salt, Men of Iron, The Merry Adventures of 
Robin Food—these all were ranged on the library shelves 
with many another cherished volume. To learn that the — 


[134] 


“THE BLOODY QUAKER” 


artist-author of her admiration was to be a next-door neigh- 
bor supplied material a-plenty for hero-worshipping 
seventeen. 

“Rehoboth in that day deserves a special story of its own, 
and makes an ideal stage upon which to figure picturesquely. 
It was one of the now almost extinct species of seashore 
resort where people of refinement and modest means might 
live a simple out-of-doors existence, untroubled by casinos, 
Sunday excursions, or shops. . . . A beach so perfect that 
lifelines and bathing-master were unknown, and beautiful, 
cool stretches of pine woods, made a combination unique in 
this imperfect world... . 

“In a frame cottage, large enough to accommodate a 
numerous brood of sons and daughters, lived for many 
summers Howard Pyle, as much an integral part of the 
Rehoboth colony as his clergyman neighbor or the Baltimore 
manufacturer, whose big house was the nearest local ap- 
proach to a ‘palatial residence.? Here he worked in a small 
studio built in his back yard, or painted in the open, undis- 
turbed by curious observers. .. . 

“On the very first morning after her arrival the new- 
comer wakened to the mingled sounds of breakers dashing 
on the stretch of beach and the chatter of childish voices. 
A peep from the window disclosed a gay company, gathered 
about a flagstaff on the corner. Among them stood the tall 
man of her later enthusiasm. He was raising the Stars and 
Stripes, while half a dozen hands saluted its unfurling, and 
as Many eager voices sang its praise. Every pleasant morn- 
ing of that summer saw the same flag thrown to the winds 
by the Pyle family, and every evening repeated the cere- 
mony of lowering it when an imaginary sunset gun had 


[ 135 ] 


HOWARD PYLE SALCHRONICLE 


boomed across the sands. Much in keeping with Howard 
Pyle’s sturdy Americanism seems the little ceremony so 
carefully performed... . 

“On a day in late July there appeared at the door of the 
clergyman’s cottage one of the numerous pickaninnies that 
swarmed about the kitchen doors of Rehoboth cottages, 
playing amicably with the children of the establishment, 
while their mothers cooked marvelous dishes within or 
ironed white petticoats on the latticed porch. This impish 
messenger carried a note—nay, rather, a magic spell—that 
was to transform a commonplace Monday into a day forever 
marked with a white stone. And the spell read, tamely 
enough, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Howard Pyle request the pleasure 
of Miss Hero-Worshipping Seventeen’s company on Thurs- 
day evening, July 21st, at 8 o’clock.? The word ‘Cards? 
appeared in the lower left-hand corner of the note. .. . 

“Euchre was the game in vogue in those simple days. 
And every evening before the grand event was spent by the 
excited girl in practising with the aid of a sympathetic 
clergyman host, so that she might not mix up the right and 
left bower, or be puzzled as to the proper moment for 
trumping a partner’s ace. Even more anxiously than she 
studied her game did she regard her face in the mirror, a 
plain little face, rendered none the more attractive by a 
sunburn that sturdily resisted all the blandishments of cold 
cream. , 

“Of what happened Thursday she has a confused memory 
rather than a clear picture. There were lots of ‘young men 
and maidens, old men and children,’ for such affairs at 
Rehoboth were by no means sophisticated in tone. She 
played cards automatically, conscious all the while of a big, 


[ 136 ] 





VIEWING THE BATTLE OF BUNKER 


From 
A History or THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 


Harper's Magazine, 1901 





“THE BLOODY QUAKER” 


kindly man, who leaned over the table for an occasional 
genial word, who talked mostly to the quiet girls or the shy 
boys, who urged one to eat lots of peach ice cream and dis- 
pensed salad in truly Southern portions. 

“When the scores of the players were announced, Miss 
Seventeen heard in dazed surprise her name called as winner 
of the first prize. If only it might be an original sketch by 
Mr. Pyle himself! That the Fates might have so ordained 
was her one thought as she rose at her host’s request to 
receive her gift. Mr. Pyle never knew how agonizingly 
long were the seconds during which she faced the expectant 
assembly, while he made the humorous presentation speech 
that had popped into his head, and until an opened box 
revealed her present to be a hat pin. 

“One more picture of Rehoboth days includes Mr. Pyle. 
There came a morning when Salomy’s beaten biscuits were 
more marvelous wonders of cookery than usual. When this 
happened neighborly instinct prompted a sharing. A 
pleased youngster was dispatched with a heaped-up plate 
and a message for the Pyles. The plate proved her open 
sesame to that innermost sanctuary, the studio itself, where 
Mr. and Mrs. Pyle and the artist’s secretary welcomed the 
gift as if beaten biscuit were the rarest thing in life instead 
of an everyday Rehoboth necessity. 

“On the easel stood the picture that was later to make 
the frontispiece of a well-known magazine. Under a 
blossoming apple tree sat a young girl and her lover. Back 
of the tree, grimly suggestive of coming change, stood a 
tall figure in white draperies wielding a scimitar. No 
accompanying poem was needed to explain the illustration. 

“ “Do you understand now the scene you surprised in the 


[2187 


HOWARDYPYLEs ARGH RONICIE 


back yard the other afternoon?’ laughed Mr. Pyle. The 
bearer of beaten biscuit did. On that particular occasion she 
had discovered John, the Pyle handyman, model and 
gardener, and butler and nurse, swathed in sheets, flourish- 
Iipa sick leeaam, a 


This account shows the almost rustic simplicity with which 
the Pyles lived in Rehoboth. A gentle restfulness pervaded 
the whole atmosphere. Oddly enough, it was here, amid 
such happily domestic surroundings, that that vigorous love 
of pirates was born and was nourished until we have it 
amplified and adorned in such tales as “The Ruby of 
Kishmoor” and “The Ghost of Captain Brand.” The 
topography of the coastline explains it. To the north of 
Rehoboth, just a few hundred yards south of Cape Hen- 
lopen, tower some immense sand dunes, on the top of which 
looms a quaintly picturesque lighthouse built in 1763, white- 
washed and glistening in the sun. Legends which are as 
old as the lighthouse itself have it that these dunes were 
once the haunt of many a bloodthirsty old sea-dog, who 
used them as a safe hiding place for unmentionable booty. 
The legends are current gossip of the locality, and the 
dunes themselves, with their smooth treacherous surface 
and their vague uncertain form, rather confirm the stories 
with their appearance. The persistently inquisitive visitor 
can see the all-powerful onward march of the sand; he can 
see it gradually spread from year to year; in one place are 
the gnarled and bony trunks of innumerable trees which 
were once a vast pine forest but which have met in silent 
struggle the devouring sand. It is assuredly a place 
curiously appropriate for pirates. | 


[ 138 ] 


“THE BLOODY QUAKER” 


From the very beginning of Howard Pyle’s weeks in 
Rehoboth, as soon as he had felt the spell of the sand dunes’ 
secrecy, the fondness for pirates was strong in his heart. He 
began to collect books on the subject, and gradually that 
library, which Mr. Marvin alluded to in the quotation at 
the beginning of this chapter, came to include almost every 
book which could shed any light upon the lives and deeds 
of Morgan, or Kidd, or Teach, or any of the notorious free- 
booters of a former age. These books he read with a relish; 
even the dry and somewhat pedantic accounts of trials and 
examinations were of unflagging interest so long as they 
contained a thread of information about a buccaneer. He 
was steeped in pirate lore, his own vivid imagination 
decorating the narratives from the books with romantic 
lights and shadows. 

The first creation that rose out of this buccaneering 
interest was a novel, The Rose of Paradise, published first 
in Harper's Weekly as a serial during the summer months 
of 1887, and then as a book in the following year. Before 
this, in 1885, he had published a novel entitled Within the 
Capes, a book which the Saturday Review called a “rattling 
good yarn very well spun.” But Within the Capes, 
although it was a tale of the sea, full of adventure and 
thrills, even though it included a treasure which the hero 
found on a deserted island, contains no characters who are 
pirates. ‘The book is in a way, however, a preparation, an 
experimental background, as it were, for this new launching 
into the seas of piratical history. In Within the Capes 
Howard Pyle learned to handle the fundamentals of an 
exciting story, and trained his imagination towards marine 
subjects, all of which was of inestimable value to him when 


[139] 


FIOWARD (PYLEs VAVCHRONICLE 


he came to write about the grim old sea captains who 
figured in so many of his later stories. 

The Rose of Paradise has a real pirate character, the 
redoubtable Edward England. As the first of Howard 
Pyle’s buccaneers he deserves some attention: a ruffianly, 
profane, but somewhat ironical man, combining with a hard 
unflinching exterior, one mite of generosity and kindliness 
which is so small as to be almost imperceptible. He is 
drawn by the author with a keenness of perception that 
makes him stand out clearly and strongly as a bad man 
redeemed by an almost unconscious emotional mercy. He 
attracts and repels simultaneously; one irresistibly admires 
his devil-may-care attitude, loathes his murderous impulses, 
and loves his rare moments of moral susceptibility. There 
are other well-drawn characters in the book—Captain John 
Mackra, naif and courageous; Captain Edward Leach, 
superficially well-bred, but villainously deceitful. These 
men are drawn with consummate skill; they are real per- 
sons with no breath of bookishness about them. The 
women, however, are hardly worthy of such high praise; 
they are adequate but by no means convincing. The story 
itself is full of movement; there are bloody battles with 
the pirates, thrilling escapes and breathless suspense, while 
over it all hovers the glowing light of the gigantic ruby, 
the Rose itself. It is not great literature, but, to use the 
famous words of Sir Philip Sidney, it is “a tale which 
holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney 
corner.” ‘I'he illustrations were done in black-and-white, 
and were full of an atmosphere that added immeasurably 
to the thrill, but they were by no means the masterpieces 
of pirate picture that were to come later. | 


[ 140 ] 


“THE BLOODY QUAKER” 


On the strength of this novel and the knowledge of the 
subject which they knew him to possess, Harper’s asked for 
an illustrated article to be entitled “Buccaneers and 
Marooners of the Spanish Main.” It appeared in the maga- 
zine in 1887, a short account of the ancient strongholds of 
pirates in the West Indies, and of the particularly stag- 
gering audacities of some of the more notorious. But it 
was the illustrations which were epoch-making. They were 
alive. They portrayed Morgan and Blackbeard and other 
celebrities with marvelous verve, and with unquestionable 
fidelity. Among others there was the picture of a dejected 
pirate sitting on the beach, his hat and gun flung disconso- 
lately away, a cheerless bottle lying untouched in front of 
him, while behind him the surf beats monotonously on the 
shore. This picture, which is entitled “Marooned,” is one 
of the best which Howard Pyle ever produced from the 
enthusiasm of his pirate-lore. The figure of the pirate is 
almost beyond words, and the listless drooping of the hands 
a genuine touch of genius. 

Then after these pictures came an illustration for E. C. 
Stedman’s poem “Morgan.” But Mr. Stedman himself 
gives an account of it: 

“... ?Tis plain that I had an eye for genius, when I 
declared some years ago that you should illustrate any ballad 
of mine, whenever I could have my choice, and you would 
honor me by doing so. 

“Since then you have won laurels with both pen and 
brush, while I am limited to the former. Give me a painter, 
say I, then, who, like Opie, mixes his colors with brains! 
Yes, and with fire and imagination. > 

“J was charmed with your drawing for ‘Aaron Burr’s 


[ 141 ] 


HOWARD CPYLED aCe RONICEE 


Wooing,’ and furious with the engraver who clipped the 
nose of your delightful Widow Prevost. But the superb 
drawings for the ‘Star Bearer’ are the most satisfactory 
obbligato that any poetry of mine has ever received—the 
best work of this kind, too, in any American magazine. 

“Of course, with your own ‘Corsair’ spirit . . . you could 
not fail to do something fine for my ‘Morgan,’ but I 
found, this morning, even better than I expected. The 
drawing, or rather painting, is magnificent! Figures, faces, 
composition, all dramatically fine, and catching the spirit of 
the ballad at its most characteristic point. ”Iis a pity that 
this unique painting, which is the result of both talent and 
close labor, should have to be condensed into a page of 
Harper. Yet, it will be effective, even on that scale. 

“Yes, it is one of your very best, and will bear off the 
honors next December. 

“T suppose you own the painting, but J ought to. I wish 
I were able to pay your price for it, if you would permit it 
to go on my walls. When I see such a picture enriching 
my own verse, I feel more than ever the loss of my former 
means. Still, I will pinch a good deal in other directions, 
if you will name a price for it. 

“Then, you really ought to make a painting four times 
this size, from this fine study, possibly with more colors 
than black-and-white, for a large effect and for exhibition 
and sale. I say this because the grouping and motion of the 
sketch are so very striking. 

“But again my thanks for your interpretation of my 
little ballad and may I have the good fortune more than 
once again to be with you before the public.” 

This was written on July 20, 1888. Howard Pyle 


[142] 


EBS ERPSG ORS Sess. 
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GEES ON THEIR WAY TO CANADA 


Harper's Magazine, 190% 
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Rie BLOODY QUAKER” 


immediately answered, but unfortunately his letter has not 
been located. Here, however, is Mr. Stedman’s reply: 

“. .. The alliances of authors and artists are tradition- 
ally sincere. However, as you have such an alliance in 
your own dual capacities, I feel doubly drawn to my latest 
illustrator. Now, while appreciating at its full worth your 
willingness to present me at some time with one of your 
sketches, I want to say that I always have refused to accept 
the slightest sketch, as a gift, from any artist friend. For 
none knows better than I the infinite pains and life that 20 
to “the making of a work,’ and I have stood up all my life 
for ample remuneration to its maker, whether painter or 
penman. I am charmed that you are willing to sell me the 
‘Morgan’ cartoon, and at a price which I dare pay, and to 
obtain which (the amount) I shall write and sell a hundred- 
dollar poem, between now and the date of its return to your 
possession. And if I had the means formerly at my com- 
mand, I should tell you that you ought to have more for so 
successful and elaborate a picture. If then, you are willing 
to dispose of it to me, for the hundred dollars, please con- 
sider it sold. And when you deliver it, advise me as to the 
most appropriate frame for me to give it. Then come and 
see it on our parlor wall, at one of our Sunday evenings 
next winter... . ” Thus the picture of “Morgan at Porto 
Bello” passed into the hands of Mr. Stedman. 

Then came a trip to Jamaica; and this expedition into 
the West Indies, into another of the ancient seats of bucca- 
neers, brought a new impetus to the interest in pirates. 
Farly in 1890 appeared an article in Harper’s Monthly 
called “Jamaica, New and Old.” Throughout the whole of 
it, mingled with the description of modern Jamaica, was an 


[ 143 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


undercurrent of pirate allusion. It is interesting to note 
a new sense of style that shows itself for the first time in 
this essay, words used in an almost precious way which 
would have been called impressionism ten or twenty years 
later. Such expressions as “The throb of machinery pulsed » 
into silence,” “through the quivering intensity of the mid- 
day tropical sun,” or “the gnawing salt of the sea-breeze” 
are strewn indiscriminately throughout the essay. Yet this 
was several years before the publication of Stephen Crane’s 
first book, and at least ten before the impressionistic style 
became the goal of the younger fiction writers. It was ap- 
parently, however, only experimentation, for with the 
exception of one or two places in some of the later short 
stories, Howard Pyle uses a straightforward, simple style, 
skillfully adapted to whatever subject he may have in hand. 

After “Jamaica” there followed a number of stories and 
pictures dealing with buccaneers. ‘Blueskin the Pirate,” * a 
tale of the Delaware coast, the action of which centered 
around the picturesque sand dunes, was published in 1890. 
Then came an article, “Among the Sand Hills,”* about the 
dunes themselves, one sentence of which is sufficiently ex- 
pressive of their attraction to be quoted: “A breathless 
curtain of silence stretches between the glare of the sky 
above and the whispering whiteness below.” In the mean- 
time, the lure of pirates had led Howard Pyle into the 
mazes of the literature of roguery and called forth a num- 
ber of accounts in Harper’s of Claude Du Val, Jack Shep- 
pard, the romantic figure immortalized in Gay’s Beggar’s 
Opera, Jonathan Wild and others. These spirited tales, 


* The Northwestern Miller, December, 1890, vol. xxx, p. 10. 
* Harper's New Monthly Magazine, September, 1892, vol. Ixxxv, p. 586. 


[ 144 ] 


“THE BLOODY QUAKER” 


drawn largely from old chapbooks, were written with a 
quaint, indescribable relish, and were gayly set off by enter- 
taining pictures. 

In November, 1894, in illustration to an article by 
Thomas Janvier, appeared a most dramatic picture, “Pirates 
Used to Do That to Their Captains Now and Then.” It 
came to the attention of Frederic Remington, in whom 
Howard Pyle had found a congenial fellow artist. Rem- 
ington immediately took a decided fancy to this picture and 
wanted it. An exchange of work was suggested. “Too 
good—too good,’” writes Remington on January 15, 1895. 
“The pirate captain dead on the sand. If I get that I will 
worship you, it, and once more take stock in humanity. As 
for what you will get—anything I have. I have nothing 
which is good in oil—sold out and have done nothing but 
potboil of late. The best thing I have is a big wash draw- 
ing now being reproduced for the market in actual size 
(retail price $10) a bucking horse, going like the sweep of 
an angel’s wing. I shall probably not paint until spring, 
but whatever you see of mine which suits your fancy, is 
yours. How’s that? ... I am modeling in wax—creat 
fun. Your pen-and-inks (Doyle—Scribner’s) are awfully 
smooth. Should like to run over and see you—can’t go 
now, but six weeks from now, will bother you for a day if 
you say the word.”. 

The picture was soon sent to Remington, on the receipt 
of which he wrote: “I have the defunct pirate and it goes 
right up in my collection. It is simply all-fired satisfying, 
and all I am going to do is to say ‘much obliged’ and ‘it’s 
one on me.’ The ‘puncher’ will gallop into Wilmington 
some day—a ‘puncher for your pirate’; that’s fair trade if 


[ 145 ] 


HOWARD: PYLE: VALCO RON/CLE 


I paint it well enough. I have so long wanted to own one 
of your pictures. I have a picture which Mr. Joseph Jeffer- 
son gave me—one of his own; he paints; a Joseph Jef- 
ferson ain’t a bad thing in the bric-a-brac line.” 

Needless to say, when the “puncher did gallop into 
Wilmington,” he immediately took up his position on the 
wall of the Pyle house in a very important place. This 
friendship between Howard Pyle and Frederic Remington, 
while never very intimate, leads one to see the similarity 
in their ideas. Both of them were working for the same 
thing—an untrammeled American art—which with Amer- 
ican methods could interpret American subjects. Their 
work was entirely different, since one turned to the West 
exclusively for his material, and the other portrayed largely 
the former history of his country. Yet they recognized the 
fact that they were both striving for the same ideal, and 
sincerely honored each other in the recognition. 

The absorption in pirates was so strong that when Howard 
Pyle came to write a boy’s novel of life in Colonial Virginia, 
a buccaneer, Captain Edward Teach, better known as 
Blackbeard, figured as one of the most important characters. 
This book, Jack Ballister’s Fortunes, was a faithful study of 
Colonial customs and conditions. Jack Ballister, the hero, 
is kidnapped and sold into the service of a Virginia planter 
whose daughter is captured by the famous pirate captain 
and finally rescued by the hero himself. The plot is well 
knit, the action moves smoothly and rapidly. There is never 
a dull moment. It is huge in its possibilities for boys, who 
cannot fail to revel in the mass of adventure so thrillingly 
chronicled. When it was first published serially in Sz. 
Nicholas with pictures in black-and-white, Mr. W. F. 


[146 | 


“THE BLOODY QUAKER” 


Clarke, one of the editors, called it “a noble story and an 
admirable picture of the time with which it deals.” In 1 895 
it was published in book form. 

The next important venture into the pirate field was “The 
Ghost of Captain Brand” which appeared in the Christmas 
number of Harper's Weekly, 1896. This story marks a 
change in the treatment of the picturesque old buccaneers, 
Heretofore they had always been realistic and truthfully 
historical; now a shade of fantasy is consciously introduced. 
On July 13, 1896, he wrote to Harper's, “T have in mind 
a somewhat chaotic outline of a story which shall be called 
perhaps “The Ghost of Captain Brand.” As it grows in my 
mind I find it of rather a sensational order, the Captain 
Brand being an ex-pirate of the old school. The story 
would be the very furthest removed from realism, but I 
think might be made interesting if carried out as I have it 
in mind....” Further, on August 12, “...1... 
find it a very difficult story to write, requiring very delicate 
and careful touching to give it the appearance of substance 
and reality. If it has no such appearance it will, I appre- 
hend, be merely sensational without any real substance 
remaining. It is the elaboration of such details as this that 
runs it beyond its prescribed length, but I do not see how 
these can be left out without making the story bald and 
uninteresting. . .-. ” Then again, on Arrousth aa. Soiree 
I am well aware that the extreme length of the story vali- 
dates a great deal against it, but, nevertheless, I send it to 
you to read, for I think there is a certain smack of origi- 
nality about it, and the idea of the loves of the young couple 
aboard the pirate brigantine I think is not altogether amiss. 
It is, perhaps, a little overstrung in places, and ordinarily 


[147 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


I would keep it by me for a little while so that I might 
come to it with a fresh mind. . . . ” From these glimpses 
into his workshop it is clear that the story of Captain Brand 
was the object of many attentions. When it appeared, it 
met with tremendous success. The issue of Harper’s 
Weekly in which it appeared was sold out in record time, 
and the edition was very large. 

From that time this rather sensational treatment of 
pirates was more popular with Howard Pyle than was his 
former method. There was a sensational element in nearly 
every picture and story. Collier’s Weekly, in December, 
1899, published a picture, “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” 
about which he wrote to an inquiring-correspondent:* “My 
pirate picture may be explained as follows: 

“The captain of the pirate vessel and the first mate called 
upon three of the crew and together they have carried a 
chest of treasure up among the sand hills on the Atlantic 
Coast just below the mouth of Delaware Bay. They needed 
to revictual and water the ship, and were afraid to carry 
the chest of treasure aboard lest one of the King’s cruisers, 
upon the lookout for pirates, should search them and find 
their ill-gotten gain. 

“The pirate captain and the mate had already arranged 
between them that the fewer who knew such a secret the 
better. Consequently when the treasure was safely buried 
and a cross thrust down into the sand to mark the hiding 
place (for before their return a storm might so level the 
sand as to make it impossible to discover the exact spot where 
the treasure was hidden) they immediately proceeded to put 
out of the way the unfortunate witnesses of the secret. 


* Letter to Mrs. Merton MacDonald, January 22, 1900. 


[ 148 ] 





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“THE BLOODY QUAKER” 


“The mate shot two of the men as they stood together 
resting from their toil—the one with one pistol and the 
other with the other. The third victim started to run, but 
the captain running almost parallel with him and cutting 
him off at the edge of a little bluff, knocked him over with 
a single clean and well-directed shot. 

“As the situation now stands the mate has no load in 
either of his pistols and the captain has one pistol which 
is yet loaded. 

“T do not know what happened after I drew my picture.” 

This picture, while it had something of the old realism 
in it, was even more strenuously characterized by pure 
melodrama. 

But the crowning triumph of the sensational, fantastical 
pirate vein, came with the story of the “Ruby of Kishmoor,” 
which, although written many years before, was not pub- 
lished until 1907, when it appeared first in Harper's 
Monthly and then as a book. Like the “Ghost of Captain 
Brand,” it was originally too long for the magazine, and 
had to be somewhat cut, in spite of the author’s disapproval. 
He was afraid that the delightful spirit of extravagant melo- 
drama would be spoiled in the cutting; as he said in a letter 
to Mr. Wells of Harper's: “ ... I wrote it many years 
ago and laid it aside so that when I approached it again, 
I think I came to it with a calm and critical spirit. My 
own impression of the story was that it was not lacking in 
literary value, and that the drolling was rather good for 
those who could catch the point of the joke; and I also felt 
at the same time that the story had enough interest to carry 
itself for those who read it only for the narrative. I have 
an idea that if it is too much condensed the joke will be 


[ 149 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


lost to those whom it may amuse, and that only the rather 
sensational narrative will be left—and of course you want 
to please all tastes... .” As a compromise, the story 
was published slightly condensed in the magazine, and as 
the author had written it in the book. The results in each 
case prove his contention, for, as the tale appears in the 
book it is infinitely better than it was in the magazine. It 
is both lively and droll, deliciously hyperbolical and at the 
same time straightforwardly simple. Mr. Jonathan Rudd, 
a calm, sober, young Philadelphia Quaker, on a trip to 
Jamaica falls at once into an adventure so extravagant that 
it is beyond even his dreams. His dogged plainness and 
lack of romantic fervor provide exquisite fun under the 
circumstances. The pictures for The Ruby of Kishmoor, 
however, are its really outstanding merit. They are in 
color—bold but well-balanced color. The single figure of 
Captain Keitt, standing on the slanting deck of his ship with 
a high sea running behind and a burning galleon in the 
distance, is perhaps the best of all of Howard Pyle’s pirate 
pictures. 

There had been, before these illustrations for The Ruby 
of Kishmoor, a number of buccaneering pictures in color; 
they came almost simultaneously with the colored Middle 
Age pictures, when the process of reproduction had been 
improved so as to make them adaptable. In the Christmas 
number of Harper’s Monthly, 1905, there had been four in 
illustration to one of the artist’s own articles, “The Fate of 
a Treasure Town.” These four pictures were the sensation 
of the magazine world; they were marvelously rich in color, 
but not garish; they were dramatically stirring, and vividly 
romantic. The one called “Attack on a Galleon,” with its 


[150] 


“THE BLOODY QUAKER” 


marvelous golds and greens, is a splendid achievement in 
design. 

After The Ruby of Kishmoor there were a few other 
articles and stories about freebooters, but none of them is 
of any great importance. One might almost say that the 
pirate vein reached its culmination in the gorgeously colored 
pictures of The Fate of a Treasure Town and The Ruby of 
Kishmoor, and that after these triumphs Howard Pyle 
turned his versatile genius toward other phases of life or 
romance. Through the spell which pirates and their deeds 
held over him he had produced very worthy fruit. He had 
re-created the buccaneer, made him live in modern story; in 
the light of which fact it is interesting to find just what it 
was about pirates that appealed to him. Under a picture 
entitled “Ye Pirate Bold” he has written: “It is not because 
of his life of adventure and daring that I admire this one 
of my favorite heroes; nor is it because of blowing winds 
nor blue ocean nor palmy islands which he knew so well; 
nor is it because of gold he spent nor treasure he hid. He 
was a man who knew his own mind and what he wanted.” 


[151] 


CHAPTER VIII 
THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 


HROUGHOUT his whole career there was always 

one subject in which Howard Pyle was pre-eminently 
interested, and that was the history of the United States. 
Other matters could come and go; he could be fever- 
ishly occupied with the Middle Ages, he could be de- 
voted for a time to the misdeeds of barbarous pirates, but 
always, even from his very first days in New York, he was 
fascinated by history, and felt that he was doing his best 
work when he was interpreting the life of some early Colony 
or outlining the attack on some British stronghold in the 
days of the Revolution. The mass of historical information 
which he had accumulated with incessant reading was truly 
remarkable. It embraced all the periods and all the phases 
of American history, including not only the more dis- 
tinctively pictorial side of the subject such as battles and 
public occasions, but also the political and the economic. His 
reputation for this widespread knowledge of history was so 
well known to other artists that he was frequently called 
upon to supply some fellow craftsman with the details 
for a picture. He was proud of this ability to help other 
artists; he never failed to give the necessary information, 
and to it he always added a word of encouragement. But 
the chief merit of his historical research was that it found 
its expression in a series of pictures which interpreted 

[152] 


THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 


American history and life. The series finally included so 
many pictures, in fact, that it could almost serve as a pic- 
torial history of the nation, for practically no period was 
omitted with the exception of the very modern. 

So much absorption in an American past gave him a pro- 
found appreciation of everything connected with it. He 
could not see an old house destroyed without undergoing 
severe mental tortures, and the mere repairing of famous 
old buildings would move him to their support. The dis- 
may which he expresses in the following letter to Mr. W. 
H. Mersereau, who was engaged in making repairs on the 
Old Swede’s Church in Wilmington, is typical of the atti- 
tude which he had toward all such improvements: 

«|. . Old buildings and fragments of the past are to 
me very and vitally alive with the things of the past. 
When, for instance, I saw your carpenters working upon 
the Old Swede’s Church I could not but picture to myself 
in fancy the old builders of that past day in knee breeches 
and their leather aprons and their queer uncouth tools 
building up that which the present generation was tearing 
down. 

“T understand exactly the unfortunate necessity of such 
repairs, but it also grieves me sadly to see them. 

“Old Swede’s Church has so long been a joy and a pride 
to me. In passing by on the train with any of my friends 
from other places I have always pointed it out with such 
pleasure, and I never failed to receive from them expres- 
sions of intense interest. To pass by now and see the garish 
yellow shingles and the crass new woodwork that stands in 
its place causes me a feeling of real distress that cannot be 


[ 153 ] 


HOWARD. PYLE: ACCHRONICLE 


assuaged by the knowledge that even such changes were 
absolutely necessary. . . . 

“T do not believe that you will feel this to be mere senti- 
mentality upon my part. I have lived so long in our 
American past that it is like a certain part of my life. My 
imagination dwells in it and at times when I sit in my studio 
at work I forget the present and see the characters and 
things of these old days moving about me. ... ” 

The first really historical picture of Howard Pyle’s to be 
published was in illustration to an article entitled “The 
Battle of Monmouth Courthouse,” * by Benson J. Lossing. 
The picture itself is called “Carnival, Philadelphia, 1778,” 
and gives only slight promise of what was to follow after 
years of experience. It is stiff and cumbersome; there are 
too many figures and the composition is not such as to group 
them harmoniously. In fact, the illustration leads one to 
suspect that a young and untried artist had attempted some- 
thing which lay far outside his province, a suspicion which 
is indeed justified. Still, there was one quality which the 
trained observer could not overlook; a careful attention to 
detail characterized every figure. This alone gave the 
prophetic note of future success. Let the painstaking care 
be allied with a breadth of vision and skillful composition, 
and a really accurate presentation of American history 
would result. 


The next pictures which were interpretative of the 
Colonial background were much more simple and, conse- 


quently, far more effective. They were for the most part 
of the landscape variety, portraying bits of the countryside 
* Harper's New Monthly Magazine, June, 1878, vol. lvii, p. 29. 


[154] 


THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 


along the old national pike as they were long ago." From 
the time of the production of these simple pen-and-inks, 
the advance in the drawing of historical subjects was unin- 
terrupted. Article after article, some written by Howard 
Pyle himself, some by other hands, but each treating some 
phase of American history, appeared in the Harper pub- 
lications, with careful and striking illustrations which seemed 
almost to be the raison @étre of the articles. The result of 
these successes was that Howard Pyle began to gain a nation- 
wide reputation for his ability to interpret periods of 
American history. 

In one way this phase of his genius differs very radically 
from those other phases which have been treated in the pre- 
ceding chapters. It was through a combination of his abil- 
ities both as an artist and as an author that he was able to 
make so admirable a success with his fairy stories. Like- 
wise, it was this creative duality that gave life and color to 
the Middle Ages, and particularly to his contributions to 
pirate lore. But in the field of history it was almost solely 
through pictures that he appealed to his audience. The 
articles which he wrote to go with his pictures, with the 
exception of the very first ones, are obviously work of the 
pot-boil variety. He made many attempts to adapt his his- 
torical knowledge to the written page, but nearly all are 
unsuccessful. Yet each was illustrated by excellent draw- 
ings. Finally, he almost entirely gave up writing on his- 
torical subjects and devoted himself wholly to their pictorial 
side. His inability to write compellingly on history is an 
inexplicable fact, and is all the more puzzling because of 


*The Old National Pike,” by W. H. Rideing, Harper’s New Monthly 
Magazine, November, 1879, vol. lix, p. 801. 


[155 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


his unflagging interest in the subject-matter and his unques- 
tioned ability to portray it in pictures. Certainly, few of his 
productions are more widely known and appreciated than 
his paintings of Colonial and Revolutionary scenes. 

Perhaps the best of the pen-and-inks which picture the 
early period of America are those which were done to illus- 
trate Dr. Holmes’s “One Hoss Shay” and “Dorothy Q.” 
Mr. Winthrop Scudder, who was at that time art editor for 
Houghton, Mifflin & Company, was instrumental in get- 
ting Howard Pyle to undertake them. The “One Hoss 
Shay,” which was published in 1892, contained a series of 
pictures which gave just the proper humorous setting for 
that popular poem. They harmonized perfectly with the 
spirit which Dr. Holmes had given the verses. This was 
followed, in 1893, by “Dorothy Q.,” which met with equal 
approval. Then the publishers decided that they would put 
out a de luxe edition of The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. 
Howard Pyle was almost too busy to undertake the illus- 
trations for this, but finally, after a great deal of persuasion 
on the part of Mr. Scudder, he consented. Mr. Scudder 
wrote him on January 24, 1893: “ ... You are probably 
aware that in our plans for the coming year the Autocrat 
has taken the first place. In other words, this is our leading 
book. If it is not illustrated by you I fear it will have to 
take a much less prominent place in the line. You are in 
such perfect sympathy with Dr. Holmes, not only on his 
literary side, but on the humorous as well, that I have felt 
from the beginning that your work on this book would give 
you a great deal of pleasure, delight the good old doctor, 
and satisfy the general public, who are so well acquainted 
with the Autocrat. ...” It was probably this plea that 


[ 156 ] 


THEN ALL THE WORLD WAS YOUNG 


Harper's Magazine, 190¢ 








THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 


influenced Howard Pyle to set about the making of the pic- 
tures. When they were completed and published in 1894 
they came just too late to “delight the good old doctor,” 
but they were so genial in their manner, so distinctly adapted 
to his work, that had the author been alive he would 
undoubtedly have been the first to hail them as admirable. 

Just eighteen years after the publication of that first his- 
torical painting, “Carnival, Philadelphia, 1778,” he had in 
Flarper’s Monthly a series of paintings in illustration to 
Woodrow Wilson’s “George Washington.” In the mean-~ 
time there had been a host of pictures dealing with history 
in some form or other; single pictures such as “The First 
Visit of William Penn to America,”* and “Washington 
Taking Leave of His Officers”;” illustrations for a historical 
novel, Iu the Valley,® by Harold Frederic; decorations for 
S. Weir Mitchell’s Quaker Lady;* and numerous pen-and- 
inks illustrating stories and articles of various kinds. Each 
of these had added greatly to his reputation for the drawing 
of historical pictures and had brought about a great demand 
for his work in this field. Consequently when the Harpers 
secured the biography of George Washington which they 
intended to feature in the magazine, there was no illustrator 
who could command attention with such certainty as could 
Howard Pyle. 

Alden, the editor of Harpers Monthly, wrote to him 
on August 20, 1895: “Professor Woodrow Wilson is 
preparing for our magazine six papers on George Washing- 
ton. His first paper, treating the Virginia of Washington’s 

* Harper’s Weekly, March 31, 1883, vol. xxvii, p. 199. 

* [bid., December 1, 1883, vol. xxvii, p. 767. 


* Scribner's Magazine, beginning September, 1889, vol. vi, p. 284. 
* Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, November, 1890, vol. lxxxi, p. 933. 


[157] 


HOWARDUPYLE® AVCHRONICEE 


time (in early manhood), is nearly ready. It is to appear 
in our next January number. The author thinks these 
papers will furnish subjects for some very effective illustra- 
tions, and has suggested his preference for your treatment 
of such subjects. We also would be pleased if you could 
and would undertake the matter—can you? ... You 
would need to go to Princeton at once to get from Professor 
Wilson your motifs for the first paper... . ” 

The matter was accordingly arranged; Howard Pyle met 
Professor Wilson at Princeton and plans were made to make 
the most notable series of historical illustrations which had 
yet made their appearance in an American magazine. They 
were immensely successful pictures; in them was concen- 
trated all the knowledge of the period which the artist had 
gained from unremitting research, and all the technical skill 
which had come with eighteen years’ experience. Woodrow 
Wilson wrote to him on December 23, 1895, after having 
just seen the proofs of the first group, “I must write at 
once to express my admiration for the illustrations you have 
made for my first article. They seem to me in every way 
admirable. They heighten the significance of the text, not 
only being entirely in its spirit, but are themselves besides, 
perfect in their kind. The last of the three* seems to me 
especially delightful for its human truth. I have just writ- 
ten to beg the publishers to let me have proof copies of 
them, and of the rest as they follow: for I shall certainly 
want to frame some; all, indeed, that I can find room for.” 
Then, a week later, he concluded a letter, “ ... I have 
already expressed my delight with the illustrations of the 


*“They Read Only upon Occasions When the Weather Darkened,” 
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, January, 1896, vol. xcii, p. 169. 


[ 158 | 


THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 


first article; but I cannot help adding Mrs. Wilson’s com- 
ment on the third one, that it reminds one, in its subtle 


touches of character, of Gérdme.” 

Howard Pyle was so absorbingly interested in the pro- 
duction of these pictures, and was so determined to have 
every detail correct, that he did not hesitate to question 
some of Professor Wilson’s facts. His own knowledge of 
the subject was so immense that he could do this with 
authority. Professor Wilson wrote him, “I can say with all 
sincerity that the more you test my details the more I shall 
like it. I am not in the least sensitive on that point.” * 
Owing to this co-operation on the part of the artist a number 
of changes were made in the text. Professor Wilson was 
impressed, and praised him in saying “you understand the 
objects I have in view quite as sympathetically as I do 
myself.”” The last of the Washington articles was pub- 
lished in November, 1896, but their success had been so 
colossal that many magazines were begging Howard Pyle 
to do similar series for them. 

The Washington pictures were exhibited first at the 
Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, where Howard Pyle was 
teaching at the time, and then at the St. Botolph Club in 
Boston. For each of these exhibitions he himself published 
a catalog, printed with old black-letter type, imitating in 
form and content the publications of the Revolutionary days. 
In the preface he claims for his muse that “she is extremely 
American in her Inclinations, and for this Reason he amuses 
himself with the Hope that the Publick may find some En- 
tertainment in those simple and rural Scenes with which he 
has endeavoured to surround the characters he has depicted 


2 Letter to Howard Pyle from Woodrow Wilson, January 12, 1896. 
2 Letter to Howard Pyle from Woodrow Wilson, February 12, 1896. 


[ 159 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


and of which his Patrons may, without doubt, have as per- 
fect an Acquaintance as he himself may boast of possessing.” 
Then there follow descriptions of the various pictures, each 
one written in quaint old English. For example, the para- 
graph for the picture “They Read Only upon Occasions 
When the Weather Darkened,” which Professor Wilson 
had particularly liked, was as follows: “It is the intention 
of the Artist in this Picture to represent the Life of a com- 
fortable and well-circumstanced Planter of Virginia of the 
Period of 1740. From the particular Nicety with which 
he is dressed, you are to suppose him waiting for some 
Friends to come and join him at a Game of Cards. Mean- 
while he is entertaining himself with reading some sly and 
merry Tale while he awaits their Arrival.” These pictures, 
after their exhibition in Boston, were bought by a group 
of prominent men for the Public Library, where they now 
hang in the Children’s Room. 

In the meantime he was being importuned by the Century 
Magazine to illustrate Hugh Wynne, the new novel by S. 
Weir Mitchell, which was to run there as a serial. Since 
this novel treated the same period which Howard Pyle had 
handled so successfully in the ‘George Washington,” the 
publishers were very desirous of having him do the pic- 
tures. The artist himself, however, who had had some ex- 
perience in illustrating the productions of Dr. Mitchell, was 
not very eager to undertake this. Dr. Mitchell was a man 
hard to satisfy and extremely determined to have things 
just as he wanted them, regardless of what anyone else 
thought. Howard Pyle was too sincere an artist to allow 
his ideas to be changed and confused by another man. 
Therefore, it was with considerable trepidation that he un- 


[ 160 | 


THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 


dertook this work. When he did start on the pictures he 
met with a great number of difficulties. It is not at all 





From 

THE ONE HOSS SHAY 
Copyright, 1892, by 
Hovcuton, Mirriin & Co. 
Printed by Permission 


improbable that this was the most trying work that he ever 

did. He was very much disappointed with the first two 

pictures, which turned out rather badly. In taking stock 
[161] 


HOWARD PY LES TAGCO RONG 


of his abilities after this failure he wrote on September 18, 
1896, to Richard Watson Gilder of the Century: 

“. . . [think the trouble with my pictures arises in part 
because the first part of this story is descriptive rather than 
actional, and in part because I feel myself working with 
very much restraint. I am so especially anxious to do this 
work to your satisfaction and to that of Dr. Mitchell that 
I am constantly haunted by the fear that what I am doing 
I am doing amiss. And then, to confess the truth, I do not 
feel myself entirely fitted to illustrate stories. 

“T think the chief value—such as it is—of my work lies 
in the imaginative side, but where the text places the scene 
exactly as it occurred the artist is obliged to limit himself 
exactly to that text, and you can easily see that it is almost 
impossible to exercise the imagination freely. 

“In the illustration of the first part, for example, I sug- 
gested a point that I felt rather filled out the story than 
directly illustrated it. The sketch I sent you represented the 
little boy leaning over the parapet of the bridge with the 
surroundings, as I could imagine them, of quaint old Phila- 
delphia. I think the subject was far more interesting and 
fulfilled the text much more than the picture of the mother 
welcoming the return of the little boy from school. But, 
as you may remember, it was deemed best by you that I 
should adhere strictly to the text... . ” 

Then on September 23rd, he wrote to Dr. Mitchell, who 
was beginning to complain that he was not kept in touch 
with the progress of the pictures: 

“ , . . I wish most heartily now that I had not under- 
taken to illustrate it. I quite agree with you that a story, 
especially one that is so dramatically told, is very much 


{ 162] 


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From 

THE STORY OF KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS 
Copyright, 1903, by CuarLes ScRIBNER’S SONS 

Printed by Permission 





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THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 


better without illustrations than with them—that is unless 
these illustrations be made to fill out the text rather than 
to make a picture of some scene described in it. 

“J do not feel that my ability in picture-making lies in 
illustrating stories. In such work I am hampered and con- 
fined by the text, and my talent (such as it is) can have no 
room in which to play. It has always seemed to me to be 
better to choose for an illustration some point, if possible, 
not mentioned directly in the text but very descriptive of 
the text. 

“For example, in the first instance I was compelled to 
choose the return of the little boy from school welcomed 
by his mother. This, while perfectly charming in your de- 
scription of it, was not a subject one could very well depict. 
You gave the idea of cool, dark interiors and wide spaces. 
In making the drawing I had to limit myself to the open 
door and a small vista outside; for in making a drawing 
one must make it with what one sees with the eyes and not 
with what one sees with the mind and thought, as you 
make in the text. If the story which I was illustrating 
had been mine, I would rather have chosen some impersonal 
subject to be called, perhaps, ‘Mother and Son,’ in which 
the mother, with her arm around the little boy, is walking 
down the dark room with such surroundings as you depict 
in the text. 

“There is no such scene mentioned in your story, but 
I think it would illustrate the feeling you intend to convey, 
and if correctly drawn, would carry forward the thought 
of the reader with some definiteness of purpose... . ” 

The soundness of this view of illustration immediately 
won Dr. Mitchell to the side of the artist. From that 


[ 163 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


time, in spite of certain objections from the publishers, the 
pictures were drawn in the manner that best suited Howard 
Pyle; and the remainder of them, that is all except the first 
two, were excellent examples of his work. Dr. Mitchell 
was very much pleased with them; he looked upon his il- 
lustrator as a genius in the craft, one whose opinions were 
not to be overborne even by the author. 

This episode was the beginning of a pleasant friendship 
between the two men. They had a great deal in common; 
they were both passionately fond of early American his- 
tory, and their tastes in literature were very similar. The 
following letter which Dr. Mitchell wrote to Howard Pyle, 
thanking him for a book in which a sketch had been drawn, 
shows very clearly the spirit of the intimacy which obtained 
between them: 


“January 29, 1905. 
“My Dear Pyle: 

“I have been busy with consultations in and out of town, 
or else I surely would have acknowledged the visit of those 
two ladies, Miss Evelina and the modest and amiable Miss 
Burney. The authoress must have sat to you. Was it in 
a dream? It amazingly realizes her, for me. ° 

“T once dreamed of an author—only once. It was while 
in Rome. I stood beside Keats’s grave at night; I knew 
that he was standing beside me. He said, ‘I am you and 
you are I.’ I said, ‘Impossible.’ ‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘All 
things are possible in sleep,’ and then I was alone. I recall 
for you this queer experience, and thank you for the de- 
lightful remembrance, sure again that the proper Miss 
Burney must have appeared at your bedside—Fie Fanny! 


[164] 


Par sPiRIT OF AMERICA 


“The book goes on my shelf beside a book George Mere- 
dith gave me. Again I am 


“Your grateful friend, 


S. Weir MITCHELL.” 


The next important historical paintings were done for 
Scribner’s Magazine and were in illustration to Henry 
Cabot Lodge’s “Story of the Revolution.” These were 
painted with great elaboration and care and in full color, 
since there was some thought of hanging them eventually 
in the Congressional Library at Washington. The colors, 
however, were not reproduced in the magazine publication. 
Due to some government formality, some regulation as to 
the ownership of all pictures hung in government buildings, 
it was found impossible to place them in the library. But 
this information fortunately came too late to interfere with 
the care which Howard Pyle took in making the pictures. 
Besides, having once begun them with the idea of painting 
an elaborate series, he would in all probability have com- 
pleted them as such, regardless of their ultimate destina- 
tion. Extracts from some of his letters to Mr. Chapin, the 
art editor of Scribner's Magazine, will give an idea of the 
amount of careful planning each of these pictures required, 
and also of the uncertainty which Howard Pyle himself felt 
about them in the beginning: 


“September 21, 1897. 
“T think that the drawing represents Lexington and the 
fight as correctly as we of the nineteenth century can gather 
our facts... . I hope you may like the drawing, for it 
represents a good deal of research and careful study. The 


[ 165 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


engagement, as my picture represents, occurred just before 
sunrise of an excessively warm April day... . ” 


“September 23, 1897. 

“I am very glad that you like my picture of the Lex- 
ington fight. I may confess to you that I somehow felt as 
timorous about it as a young artist presenting his first work. 
I felt the subject so very much, and the cloudy mud upon 
my palette was so inadequate to express the lucidity of the 
early morning light and the dimness of the earth that I 
feared you might find it as unsatisfactory as I did... . ” 


“November 18, 1897. 

“TI send you today the Bunker Hill picture. It is quite 
carefully studied, and I think, excepting the portraiture 
which of course has to be idealized, it is a correct view of 
the) battle eae 

“The ship of war firing from the distance is the Lively. 
In the remoter distance I have represented Copp’s Hill 
with the boat yard at the foot of the hill as nearly as I 
could represent it from the maps of the period. The smoke 
arising from the remoter distance is being discharged from 
a fortification upon Copp’s Hill. Charlestown lies back 
of the hill and the black smoke arising is from the burning 
houses.” 


“August 2, 1898. 
“After many delays and a great deal of worry on my 
part, | am sending you today my picture of Benedict Arnold. 
I trust you may find it to your mind, for I have expended 
much thought and great care upon it. I think it has some 
dramatic intent. 
“It represents the scene where Arnold, having received 


[ 166] 


THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 


the letter acquainting him with the capture of André, tells 
his wife of his discovered treason and of the necessity of his 
immediate escape. She sinks fainting at his feet and he 
stands over her contemplating the ruin of his own life. In 
this moment of despair and ruin the supreme egotism of 
the man was very apparent. The account says he stopped 
only a moment to raise his unconscious wife and to lay her 
upon the bed, then without calling for assistance or giving 
any further aid to her he went down stairs, bade adieu to 
his guests at the breakfast table, mounted a horse belonging 
to one of his guests and rode away to where his boat was 
waiting to carry him to the English sloop-of-war, Vulture. 

“JT have tried to represent in his face his own supreme 
self-concentration. ... ” 


A great deal of thought was expended on the selection 
of the subjects for these pictures. The following letter 
to Senator Lodge gives a glimpse of the way in which the 
artist chose the particular point in an article to be illustrated, 
and incidentally sheds light upon his method of illustration: 


“December 28, 1897. 

“I have read over very carefully your seventh historical 
paper, the first part of which treats of the conquest of the 
West under Clark and the second part of the opening of 
the campaign in the South. 

“J have given the matter a great deal of careful con- 
sideration, but prefer not writing definitely to Scribner's 
before consulting you. It seems to me that the proper part 
to illustrate in the article would lie in the first part—the 
conquest of the West, and my predilection is decidedly for 
the ballroom scene in which Clark presents himself to the 


[ 167 | 


HOWARD: PYLE: “A CHRONICLE 


eyes of the dancers and where the Indian raises the war- 
whoop—the sudden advent of Anglo-Saxon civilization into 
that remote and half-savage wilderness. 

“On second consideration, however, it seems to me that 
the ballroom scene would be a very dangerous thing for me 
to undertake. You have described it so entirely and with 
such few and well-chosen words that I fear my picture 
would be in the nature of an anti-climax. The illustrator’s 
art is not capable of so much movement and vivacity as the 
littérateur’s art. Pictorial art must represent some salient 
point that shall convey as in a whole view a certain given 
situation. It shall not require any text to explain it, but 
should explain itself and all the circumstances belonging to 
it. In your account the words and the sentences sweep 
along to a very fine climax and a very complete conclusion, 
but if I drew a picture of Clark standing in the door of 
the ballroom it might be any Anglo-Saxon pioneer inter- 
rupting any rude half-Indian frontier festivity, and might 
incur the still greater danger of not fulfilling fitly your 
very fine sentence. As a matter of illustration I would 
rather seek to represent an image of Clark’s advance into 
the West—the long line of frontier riflemen trailing away 
through the primeval forests with a gap in the woodlands 
showing a glimpse of the rolling hills and sky and an eagle 
wheeling in its flight—this as typifying the westward 
advance of civilization. 

“Or else I should rather choose for an illustration a pic- 
ture of the advance against Hamilton through that tragedy 
of the flood and ice and snow, of the melting winter—as 
typifying the dauntless energy of the Anglo-American 
purpose. 


[ 168 | 


ee 


NESS 


Ste SoSe 
aed 


Sieastiay 





From 


THE STORY OF KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS 
Copyright, 1903, by CuarLes ScRIBNER’S SONS 
Printed by Permission 





THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 


“Rither of these subjects is of a sort that might add 
I think very much to the text, while the ballroom scene 
would have the danger of weakening the story. 

“Perhaps the best subject of all, however, is one which 
you have barely touched upon, and that is some general 
incident of the bitter and savage warfare of the frontier 
settlers in Kentucky when the Indians were let loose upon 
them. There are hundreds of tragic incidents in this in 
which the pencil can produce an infinitely better result than 
the pen, and it seems to me that the possibility of some such 
picture as that might fill out and complete the circle of your 
history far more than the exact illustration of a text which 
you give me. In other words our two arts might thus round 
the circle instead of advancing in parallel lines upon which 
it is almost impossible to keep them perfectly abreast. I 
feel, for instance, that my drawing of the single figure of 
Jefferson, as I described it to you, added far more to your 
fine text than a more elaborate illustration of some definite 
point might have done. 

“Tf you do not agree with me in this I hope that you will 
understand that I am perfectly open to advice, for 1am much 
interested in your series of papers and my prime desire 1s 
to carry out what I believe to be a very noble and admirable 
work that you are doing... . ” 

These pictures for Senator Lodge’s history, after their 
completion and before their publication, were exhibited in 
various cities throughout the country, where they were en- 
thusiastically received by critics and public. Many of them 
were sold, but one, “Clark on his Way to Kankaskia,” was 
presented by the artist to Senator Lodge. He, in turn, 
eave it to President Roosevelt, who had taken a decided 


[ 169 | 


HIOWARDERY LAS ACCHRONICEE 


fancy to it, and now it hangs in the Roosevelt house at 
Oyster Bay. 

These were almost the last of Howard Pyle’s historical 
pictures to appear in black-and-white in the magazines. 
Those which followed, and they were not many, were for 
the most part reproduced in full color. Perhaps the best of 
these were the illustrations to Basil King’s story “The Hang- 
ing of Mary Dyer,” one of the products of Howard Pyle’s 
short association with McClure’s Magazine as art editor in 
1905. Mr. King wrote to him concerning them on Novem- 
ber 3, 1906: “Permit me to thank you for the beautiful 
illustrations with which you have ennobled—the word is 
just—my little story of Mary Dyer, in the November issue 
of McClure’s. I cannot but feel that if I had only seen the 
illustrations first, I should have written a better tale. I have 
to thank you, too, and most sincerely, for the kind sugges- 
tions with regard to one or two details in the story which are 
incorrect. It was the more important that Mary Dyer 
should come out of the prison with her hands unbound—as 
you represent her—from the fact that in the scene on the 
scaffold, which is absolutely historical, she is spoken of 
as though, at first, her hands were free. Until you 
pointed it out, I had not noticed the inconsistency in my 
own narrative. Again let me offer you my most genuine 
tharksayt ye. | 

In addition to all the pictures which treated directly of 
the history of the United States, Howard Pyle illustrated 
a number of stories which described the social life in certain 
sections of the country. The most outstanding of these were 
doubtless the pictures which were drawn for Margaret 
Deland’s Old Chester Tales, published in Harpers 


[ 170 | 


PAE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 


Monthly in 1898. Mrs. Deland expresses her admira- 
tion of them thus: “ . . . I want to tell you how especially 
delighted I am with the two pictures for ‘Good for the 
Soul.’ After I had seen them I said to Mr. Alden that 
I did not think that even you could find anything that was 
illustratable in ‘The Thief’—which I consider a pretty poor 
sort of story. Mr. Alden smiled, and handed me silently 
your study of Judge Morrison in the garret looking over 
the papers. It was perfectly charming, and exactly like 
him! ...I1 am quite certain that your part in the 
Old Chester Tales will cover a multitude of sins in the 
CS ei aarad 

Howard Pyle’s interest in the United States was not 
limited to the pictorial and historical side. He was always 
actively interested in the political campaigns of the day. 
He was a staunch Republican, devoted to nearly all the 
tenets of Republicanism, but absolutely opposed to any- 
thing which bordered upon corruption in the party. When 
Delaware was about to send Mr. John Edward Addicks, 
a charlatan from outside the state who had established rest- 
-dence in Delaware, as senator to Washington and was kept 
from doing so only by the persistence of a few members of 
the legislature, Howard Pyle wrote a letter of commenda- 
tion to each of these gentlemen who had not succumbed to 
the Addicks money. One of these letters will show the 
spirit of his political nobility: 

“March 12, 1901. 

“My dear Mr. Chandler: 

“May I be permitted to express to you somewhat the ad- 
miration I felt for the splendid fight you so successfully 
waged against veniality and corruption during the last 


Leet 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


session of the legislature at Dover. The firm and determined 
stand you took and the successful conclusion of the battle 
which you waged against such tremendous odds and in spite 
of the enormous political pressure which must have been 
brought to bear upon you has won for you not only the ad- 
miration of all the honest men in the nation at large, but 
has made it a matter of great personal pride to all those of 
your fellow citizens whose wish it is to see justice vindicated 
and the unsavoriness of state politics rendered pure and 
clean. 
“Sincerely, 
““FlowarRD Py.e.” 

At the time of the Roosevelt campaign, in 1904, he 
was so intensely interested in the presidential contest, that 
he drew a cartoon and wrote a little article to go with it, 
both of which were published anonymously in Collier's 
Weekly. This was managed through the instrumentality 
of Mr. L. A. Coolidge, after Mr. Roosevelt had written 
the artist as follows: 

“I think that a first-class drawing. My only question is 
whether it is not just a little too good to appeal to those 
- whom cartoons in campaigns must influence. I shall send 
it at once on to Mr. Cortelyou and see if it cannot be used. 
I shall tell him that I think the mere fact that your name is 
attached to it will give it a real value with an audience 
particularly desirable to reach—in other words, while I 
think it too good to appeal to one class, I think it will appeal 
to another class which few cartoons can reach at all. . . .”? 
Mr. Coolidge wrote that it was regarded at headquarters 
as “the strongest thing that has been written during the 


“Letter from Theodore Roosevelt, October 8, 1904. 


[172] 


PEE SPIRIT OPC AMERICA 


campaign.” ‘Then, also, after Judge Parker’s speech at the 
Madison Square Garden in which he accused both Roosevelt 
and Cortelyou of underhand dealings, Howard Pyle wrote 
a very forceful letter of defense, which was published in 
the New York Tribune. 

These efforts were sufficient to establish his reputation 
with the party leaders, so that in 1908 he was asked to con- 
tribute something in the way of advertising matter to the 
Taft campaign. Mr. Richard V. Oulahan, the advertising 
manager for the National Committee, wrote him: “Mr. 
Coolidge has suggested that I get in touch with you, and 
as he is in town today I intended to see him and obtain from 
him some suggestions upon which I might base an appeal 
to you to give us the benefit of your experience and ability. 
I know confidentially of what you did four years ago, and 
I have been told that the cartoon entitled ‘Whither?’ with 
the accompanying reading matter entitled ‘How Are We 
Going to Vote This Year?’ was more effective as a campaign 
advertisement than anything else put out in behalf of Presi- 
dent Roosevelt by the Literary Bureau of the National 
Committee. I shall be glad of any suggestions from you 
and trust that you may be able in both an artistic and 
literary way to assist us at the earliest opportunity... . ”* 

What Howard Pyle did to support the candidacy of Mr. 
Taft can be seen in this letter written on November 8th 
by Mr. Oulahan after the election was settled: 

“Now that the campaign is over | want to express to you 
my great appreciation of the work which you did in Mr. 
Taft’s behalf. In my opinion the suggestions which you 
made and the literary matter submitted by you had much 

* Letter from R. V. Oulahan, September 6, 1908. 


E2730) 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


to do in bringing about the happy outcome of last Tuesday’s 
contest. Your comparison of Taft and Bryan was a master- 
piece of convincing logic. This is not merely my own in- 
dividual opinion, but the opinion of many others in whose 
judgment I have great confidence. We obtained the inser- 
tion of your article in Leslie’s Weekly and afterwards, fol- 
lowing your suggestion, distributed it as a handbill in labor 
centers. hen, too, we used it as the basis for a sixteen- 
sheet billboard poster, and I saw to it that these posters 
were placed on billboards in Wilmington, in order that 
you might have an opportunity of inspecting them. This 
billboard advertising was confined at first to cities of over 
fifty thousand inhabitants, in states regarded as debatable. 
Subsequently we placed it in cities of between five thousand 
and fifty thousand inhabitants. We issued also an 
eight-sheet poster along the general lines of the hand- 
bill suggested by you, and this was displayed very generally 
throughout the country. 

“Mr. Dolley, the State Chairman of Kansas, was so 
taken with the poster that he wanted it placed on every 
billboard in his state. The Republican County Committee 
of Westchester County, New York, regarded it as a splendid 
vote-getter and at its own expense filled all available bill- 
board space in that county. While it is impossible to say 
just what effect this poster had on the voters, it is noteworthy 
that Westchester gave a greater proportionate increase in 
the vote for the Republican Presidential Ticket than any 
other county in the state of New York, and became the ~ 
banner Republican county. 

“The handbill obtained a very wide circulation. I tele- 
graphed a description of it to Mr. Garretson, the editor of 


[174] 





From 


THE STORY OF KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS 


ARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


by Cu 
ission 


Copyright, 1903, 
inted by Permi 


Pr 





THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 


the Cincinnati Times-Star, who had organized a Taft Busi- 
ness Men’s Club and had arranged for distributing campaign 
literature among men employed in shops and factories. Mr. 
Garretson asked us by telegraph to send thirty thousand 
copies of the handbill and when these were received he sent 
an enthusiastic response in which he appealed for twenty- 
five thousand more copies. 

“I think you will understand from the above how val- 
uable an asset your suggestion proved to be, and I feel that 
I cannot thank you enough for the great help which you 
gave the Literary Bureau and Mr. Taft’s cause.” 

The artist’s reply to Mr. Oulahan shows his own con- 
victions in the matter: 3 

“IT have just received your exceedingly cordial and en- 
thusiastic letter relating to the draft which I formulated for 
a hypothetical handbill in behalf of Mr. Taft’s candidacy. 
I did not notice whether it had been used, nor did I par- 
ticularly observe the posters of which you speak. My own 
mind was so very thoroughly made up that I read but little 
of the campaign literature outside of the printed words of 
Mr. Taft and Mr. Bryan and the President’s letters. I sup- 
pose from my literary pursuits I am somewhat in the position 
of the baker to whom cakes and buns do not make any 
especial appeal. I regard the election of Mr. Taft as being 
so great and momentous a benefit to the country that the 
very best that any patriotic citizen could do was little enough 
tobe done. . . .”* 

Howard Pyle was always an ardent admirer of Theodore 
Roosevelt, whose strenuous character moved him to hero- 
worship. They became fast friends. A book plate was made 


* Letter to R. V. Oulahan, November 9, 1908. 


[175 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


for Mrs. Roosevelt; specially bound copies of the King Ar- 
thur books were presented to her; Mr. and Mrs. Pyle made 
visits to the White House. The admiration, however, was 
not all on the side of the artist, for Mr. Roosevelt held both 
the books and pictures of Howard Pyle in the greatest es- 
teem. It 1s interesting to note that in the famous collection 
of books which he took with him on his hunting expedition in 
Africa was the Robin Hood. There isa touching paragraph 
in a letter written to Roosevelt on September 11, 1907: 
“Your sister, Mrs. Cowles, was in my studio here in Wil- 
mington some time since, and she saw the original of the 
picture of Lincoln which appears in the current Harpers 
Magazine. She appeared to be moved by the pathos of the 
image which I had attempted to depict, and I told her then 
that the inspiration of your tireless and energetic struggle 
for the benefit of a great people had had a large if not a 
dominant influence upon my presenting the picture of your 
great fellow President. You also will stand forth in the 
future as one who has given the best efforts of his life to the 
combating of a gigantic evil and for the preservation of the 
best interests and the enlargement of the future happiness 
of his fellow-men. . . .” 


[ 176 ] 


CHAPTER IX 
PHILOSOPHER AND MYSTIC 


OWARD PYLE grew up in an atmosphere of re- 

ligious and philosophical inquiry. His mother, who 
was the dominant influence on his early life, was an original 
thinker; she was willing to take no dogmas on faith, but 
insisted upon formulating her own beliefs and theories. 
Consequently it was only natural that her son, who was 
always her devout admirer, should follow in her footsteps in 
this regard. When Mrs. Pyle became earnestly interested 
in the doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg, she broke away 
from the old Quaker faith to which her ancestors had ad- 
hered for many generations, and molded her religious con- 
victions in the light of her own spiritual reasoning, strength- 
ened by the support of the Swedish mystic. This break 
from the Quaker church is clearly indicative of the mystic 
temper of her mind, for Quakers, while they do occasionally 
leave the church, usually do so in order to join a more 
ritualistic sect, very seldom to unite themselves with an order 
even more mystical than the Quaker church. The early 
years of Howard Pyle’s life were colored with this spirit 
of mysticism which he inherited from his mother, and which 
was daily strengthened in him through his continual associa- 
tion with her. Yet the Quaker simplicity, handed down 
from generation to generation, remained undiminished un- 
der Swedenborgian influences. He retained throughout his 
life a simplicity of character which was most unusual for 


[177 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


one of his versatile genius, and which was probably due to 
the long tradition of Quakerism which lay behind him. And 
in spite of an active life in the material world, he was 
greatly given to metaphysical and spiritual speculation. He 
never lost, as long as he lived, the interest in things spiritual. 

From the day when he first read Their Wedding Journey 
he had been an ardent admirer of William Dean Howells, 
whose novels he always read immediately on their appear- 
ance. Since Harper & Brothers were the publishers for 
both men, and since both of them were frequenters of the 
Franklin Square offices, they finally met. It was just after 
this meeting that Howells began turning his fiction into 
the channel of speculative thought, whereupon Howard 
Pyle wrote him a letter congratulating him on a more or 
less philosophic story “The Shadow of a Dream,” which had 
just appeared in Harper's Magazine. This was the begin- 
ning of a long correspondence in which were discussed many 
topics of religious and philosophic import. A few of the 
letters which Howard Pyle wrote will give a very clear idea 
of the doubts which troubled them. 


“Wilmington, Delaware. 
“April 13, 780o. 
“My dear Mr. Howells: 

“I have just finished reading your story? from a copy 
of the May number of the Harper’s and feel, now that I 
have the pleasure of your acquaintance, that it may not be 
entirely amiss for me to reach out a hand of congratulation. 

“It seems to me that the most tragic element of your 
story is the pathetic commonness of it all; so much agony, 


so much torture, and all for the sake of the dryest of dry 
*“The Shadow of a Dream.” 


[ 178 ] 


PHILOSOPHER AND MYSTIC 


husks. I can imagine poor Nevil awaking in the other world 
and with what anguish he would discover that in his effort 
to do right he had committed the seven-fold sin of striving 
to snatch God’s scepter from His hand, and of and by his 
own wisdom, to judge betwixt right and wrong—that im- 
possible task that we all endeavor to accomplish. If he 
could only have been less wise or more wise how easily all 
might have been solved! If he had had the wisdom of the 
world to sturdily assert, ‘All hair-splitting is stuff and non- 
sense! I love you and you love me and what use can there 
be in making ourselves miserable about it,’ would the poor 
weak woman not have leaned upon his strength? If he 
could have asserted that higher wisdom (with truth from 
his soul), ‘The past is God’s; the future is God’s and God’s 
purposes can only be fulfilled in the union of our love,’ how 
she would have clung to him. As it was he stood neither 
with his feet on the earth nor with his head in the Heavens 
but falling into the chaos of uncertainties dragged the poor 
girl with him. | 

“Did you ever try to solve that paradoxical truth that 
those who strive so hard to do the right thing insist upon 
making their own lives and the lives of those dearest to 
them so uncomfortable? Is it not that they are passing from 
the wholesome flower of natural love to the wholesome point 
of celestial love through the distasteful sourness of a spirit- 
ual change? 

“Sometimes of late it has happened that a vivid flash of 
real truth has for a moment lit up the smoky murkiness of 
my self-desired intelligence. One such flash of God’s light- 
ning came to me lately and it seems to light up this story 
of yours. As nearly as I can word it it is this—The King- 


[179] 


HOWARD. PYLE?) AY CHRONICLE 


dom of Heaven is not to be gained by self-denial nor by 
virtue—no, not by goodness itself. If it had flashed upon 
Nevil’s eyeballs instead of mine perhaps it would not have 
been necessary for him to die by the sleeping car. 
“Very sincerely yours, 
““FlowarD Pye.” 


‘In his reply to this letter, Howells defends Nevil as a 
victim of circumstance, at the same time expressing his own 
spiritual doubts and his inability to refrain from speculation 
in regard to things above him. He concludes by saying that 
he often feels that peace lies only in the giving up of one’s 
will. This is the answer sent by Howard Pyle: 


“Wilmington, Delaware, 
“May 5, 1890. 
“My dear Mr. Howells: 

“I have resisted, and resisted quite manfully I flatter 
myself, the temptation to answer your kind reply to my 
letter. relating to your story. But like most of my tempta- 
tions, the itch to say something more has gotten the better 
of me. 

“I think you misunderstood my remarks concerning Nevil. 
I regard him distinctly as a hero and not the less a hero be- 
cause he wrestled vainly with an angel of truth. Such strug- 
gles are upon a higher plane than my standing of dull com- 
monplace and my pity for him was only pity for the suffer- 
ing of a high and noble nature. Your story ran parallel 
with a truth with which my mind was then very pregnant 
and which you again assert in your letter—that all must 
suffer into the truth. 

[ 180 ] 


PHILOSOPHER AND MYSTIC 


“Then, if it be not too presumptuous, I would question 
very seriously the wisdom of clinging to the earthly plane. 
If one does not meddle with things higher how is one ever 
to be lifted out of the slough? Again it seems to me a very 
doubtful matter whether one dies out of one’s difficulties. I 
apprehend that most of us die into them. 

“T have been very much impressed with that of late, so 
much so that the idea has formulated itself into a kind of 
story * which I have begun and may perhaps finish. I doubt 
if it will do for publication, but I wish I might find the 
courage to ask for an opinion as to its truth from your 
broader and wiser reasoning. 

“T do not know that I accept your gloss to my revela- 
tion, as you pleased to call it. Self-denial and virtue 
and goodness may win the Kingdom of Heaven when not 
practised for the sake of self-denial and virtue and goodness 
but—I don’t know. 

“Yours sincerely, 
“FLOWARD Py Le.” 


“Wilmington, Delaware, 
“December 2Ist, 1890. 

“My dear Mr. Howells: 

<¢ . . I wish I knew what has been the result of your 
last summer’s reading upon the subject of dreams. I myself 
mistrust all such philosophical speculations most heartily. 
They have such a taking and tawdry glitter, but submitted to 
the Divine Fire in the Crucible of Truth they never fail 
either to vanish in smoke or to crumble to dust. I have 


* The story alluded to is one that was later developed into “In Tenebras,” 
published in Harper’s Magazine, February, 1894, vol. lxxxviii, p. 392. 


[ 181 ] 


HOWARD PYLE? AVCHRONICES 


always been very much interested in Natural Physics my- 
self. Lately I was reading a little handbook on the subject 
of later Astronomy. It is marvelous to what almost su- 
preme heights research has led the modern philosopher. In 
description of spectrum analysis of the sun especially one 
hung almost breathless, for the speculators touched so close 
—so very close upon the true heart of all life that it seemed 
as though they must feel the tremor of its beating pulse. 
But what is the result? A ‘theory’ either that the vast tre- 
mendous source of our light is kept alive by a dribbling 
shower of meteors pouring into it or by shrinkage of its sur- 
face!!! Qne hardly knows whether to laugh or to cry at 
such poor, blind, helpless stumbling. So I apprehend it is 
with your dreaming philosophers who put on such farsighted 
magnifiers to see what is under their very noses as clear 
as day and as transparent as truth. Of course you under- 
stand that I do not pretend to judge of such things in the 
light of my own ha?-penny dip! 
“Very sincerely yours, 
“FLowarp Pye.” 


On December 22, 1890, Howells had sent a letter in- 
closing a copy of a dream-paper which he had written, and 
stating in the most fervent manner the trying doubts under 
which he was laboring. To this Howard Pyle replied: 


“Wilmington, Delaware, 
“December 29th, 1890. 
“My dear Friend: 

“My not having answered your letter sooner is not upon 
account of lack of will or interest. Twice I undertook to 
write to you and twice I failed. There is so much that I 

[ 182 ] 





AT THE GATE OF THE CASTLE 
From 

Prerre ViIpAL, TROUBADOUR 

Harper's Magazine, 1903 





PHILOSOPHER AND MYSTIC 


should like to say—so much that I cannot say and so much 
that I have no right to say. 

«. . . But I think more than anything else I felt the im- 
plied—shall I say confidence in me?—in sending me your 
‘dream-letter’ to read. I was very, very much moved by it 
—especially taking it in conjunction with that part of your ~ 
letter in which you tell me of your difficulties in realizing a 
belief in a future state. I say ‘realizing’ for I really think 
that the belief is there and only needs to be realized. My 
own feelings upon that point have been so actual and positive 
for so long a time that my mind has long since ceased to be 
busied with the rationalities of truth excepting for the delight 
of confirming what is. It seems to me that the real answer to 
that all-question lies not in the pros and cons of logical rea- _ 
soning (confirmatory as those pros and cons are) but in the 
actuality of one’s own done problems. When one senses the 
actual struggle between Heaven and Hell that goes on upon 
the solid plane of one’s own individuality it seems impos- 
sible not to believe in the equal actuality of a Heaven and 
Hell. 

“However, all that is aside from that which I had it in 
mind to say to you. In the first emotion of sympathy for 
you and sincere pity for one who no doubt suffers what I 
once suffered myself I undertook with a monstrous egotism 
to offer you such crutches of reasonings as had one time 
helped me in my stumblings. (You see that I also am deal- 
ing frankly with you.) The result was that in the act of 
testing the strength of those old, disused staves they broke 
down under me so that I fell almost into the slough my- 
self. Since then I have eaten a great deal of humble pie of 
a very wholesome if not of a savory kind. 


[183] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


“Nevertheless I do think these staves are of the very 
greatest help. Reasoning cannot teach a man to walk but 
it is the lantern that God has vouchsafed us in the night and 
by it we may direct our steps (carefully and guardedly) un- 
til the brightness of a larger day shows us the highroad with 
a greater clearness. 

“T hope that you will not think me over-bold in ventur- 
ing a suggestion, but do you not think that your reading of 
Swedenborg has been maybe a stumbling-block? I remember 
you were reading Heaven and Hell when I first met you. 
I think it is an awful book. To my mind Swedenborg was 
the Divinely inspired prophet—no; the mouthpiece ot Je- 
hovah. But may not one be a mouthpiece without retain- 
ing? I merely throw this out as a query. You speak in 
your dream-letter of the ‘dullness’ of the other world. To 
my mind there is little choice in the eternity of discomfort 
between the Heaven and the Hell Swedenborg pictures— 
and neither of them read to me like fact. I hope not to’ 
go to either. 

“The first book that I ever read of his was Divine Love 
and Wisdom. J read it through almost in agony for at that 
time there was little of it that I could understand and it 
seemed to me as though God had maybe shut my eyes to 
what I wanted most of all to know—to the only thing worth 
knowing—the secret of Life and Death. But one by one 
the truths came until a real glow of light began to grow 
before me. After that I read some others of the theological 
works—The True Christian Religion and I think the Divine 
Providence. Last of all I began reading the Arcana Coeles- 
tia, slowly and by fits and starts. I have not yet finished the 
third volume though I do not know why I do not read it 


[ 184 ] 


PHILOSOPHER AND MYSTIC 


more diligently—for, next to the Bible upon which it stands, 
it is the greatest book that I have ever read. It is the very 
word of God and the history of every man’s soul. If you 
can read it (I am afraid I cannot) I am very certain that you 
will find all your doubts removed. 

« | |. But your dream-letter;—I do most positively and 
emphatically believe that in those earlier dreams you did 
actually see your daughter. In the later ones, I have as 
little doubt that you are being cruelly hoaxed by just such 
spirits as make themselves felt to you in the darkness of 
the night. Liars in themselves they have no greater pleas- 
ure than is to be derived from misleading poor, blind, help- 
less, stumbling men in this world. Should such appear 
visibly to me I would set it to the account of an overworked 
stomach. I may be prejudiced in such matters but I never 
could see that spirits ever could or ever did tell anybody 
anything that was worth the knowing—even Swedenborg 
confesses to having been deceived by them. It seems to me 
to be such an absolute duty to plough over ground and 
sow our seed here in the good old honest earth that one 
should resolutely turn from such—shall I dare to say un- 
profitable waste of God’s time? 

« . . I wish that I could see you some time. I love to 
talk of these things and maybe in mutual discussion many 
things might be cleared away for both of us. Beside, there 
is a more practical concern that I would like to discuss. Do 
you ever come to New York? If you should come any time 
soon and will let me know, I will run on and meet you... . 

“Very sincerely yours, 
“Flowarp Pye.” 


[ 185 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


“Wilmington, Delaware, 
“January 25, 1891. 
“My dear Friend: 

“T hope that my last and very voluminous letter—which 
I have sometimes thought was of a rather over-massive order 
—was not so extensive as to preclude my writing you again. 
Anyhow, I take the risk of it—for I have once more to 
ask of you a favor. 

“T live a life here of such hermit-like seclusion that there 
are many men, such as yourself, for instance—toward whom 
I grow to feel a deep and sincere liking though my only 
commerce with them is through the stiff and clumsy channel 
of ‘letter-writing.’ 

“Maybe I sometimes come nearer to such men through 
the medium of my work and so, swinging the circle, I come 
to the favor I have to ask. It is that you will accept a pair 
of drawings (which, relying upon your complaisance, I send 
by this same mail) unconsiderable but not, I hope, altogether 
inartistic. 

“Will you accept them—as being a little part of myself? 

“Very sincerely yours, 
“Ffowarp Py.e.” 


“Wilmington, Delaware, — 
“February 15, 1891. 
“My dear Friend: 

“I am very glad that you were pleased with the two lit- 
tle drawings which I sent you. I thought that maybe you 
would be glad to have them—not from any intrinsic merit 
in themselves but because of a certain kindness which I do 
believe you feel toward the author. 


[ 186 | 


PHILOSOPHER AND MYSTIC 


“You have been so much in my thoughts lately—largely, 
I think, because of your little poem in Harper’s. It made 
me feel again the useless ache of sympathy which your for- 
mer letter to me aroused. What a dreadful valley of shad- 
ows it must be through which you are passing! 

“You spoke in your last letter almost in a tone of resent- 
ment of scientists forbidding us ‘our humble hopes of a here- 
after.? I do not feel as you do concerning the scientific fiat 
of nothingness. The old must die before the new can 
spring from its roots and these lusty sons of Arrak are lay- 
ing a wholesome axe to the rotting trunk of a bygone Church. 
That old trunk will never bud again, so let it go and the 
sooner the better. 

“But their work is a work of destruction, and science can 
never build up what it is thus cutting down. It is impos- 
sible for any scientific labor to give us a new Church for 
the old order which it has made food for the burning. No 
scientifics can give any man a belief in a future state, not 
even—will you forgive me for saying so?—James’s 
Psychology. 

“It seems to me that there are very few people who really 
do believe now-a-days. Many persuade themselves, but if 
you ask a thousand men—man to man and soul to soul— 
perhaps nine hundred and ninety-nine will shake the head. 
But does that necessarily say that the one who does believe 
is wrong? ‘Tens of thousands died in the flood and only 
Noah and his family floated in the Ark. Now the earth 1s 
again covered and hidden in a deluge of truth and light— 
but still there are a few cockles floating in spite of the rain 
of scientific dogmatics. 

[187] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


«; . . I have a reader who reads to me in the mornings 
while I work. We are now occupied with the Arcana Coel- 
estia. 1 never knew what there was in it before! I have 
found that whatever remains of turgid doubts yet lingered 
in my mind are now clean gone, never, I believe, to return, 
and only the truth is left as light as day... . 

“Very sincerely yours, 
“Tlowarp PyLeg.” 


So much philosophical thinking could not go on without 
something being produced in the way of reading matter. 
At first the ideas took form in the shape of an essay, which 
was sent to Howells for his judgment concerning it. He evi- 
dently found many things to approve in it, for his letter 1s 
decidedly commendatory. 

‘‘Boston, Massachusetts, 
“May 17, 1891. 
“My dear Mr. Pyle: 

“T have read your thoughts on immortality and infinity 
with great interest, and with a full sense of the strength of 
your reasoning. I have never seen the subject presented in 
that way and the logic seems to gather mass and weight as 
you go on. There is something singularly impressive in 
the summing up. But perhaps because my brain takes feeble 
hold of propositions and conclusions, I found myself all the 
time wishing that these fresh and striking thoughts could 
have been somehow dramatically presented. As they stand 
they will appeal to a certain order of mind, but in the other 
form they would appeal to all orders of mind. They really 
give me glimpses of truth that I had not had before; they 
gave me proof, they gave me hope. I fancy I should have 

[ 188 | 


PiatLOSOPHERK AND) MYSTIC 


to read them many times over to get all there is in them; 
but as it is I have got out very much. 
“Sincerely your friend, 
“W. D. Howe ts.” 


“Wilmington, Delaware, 


lune tay 1691, 
“My dear Friend: 


“I hope you do not think me the most ungrateful and 
ungracious man of your acquaintance; I am sure (that is 
upon the face of appearances) you have amply sufficient 
ground for so thinking. But I am wot ungrateful for your 
kind and thoughtful reading of my thoughts, and I do fully 
appreciate what you said in your letter. 

“Tt—the letter—was received just upon the eve of my 
going away for a holiday for a couple of weeks or so to an 
out-of-the-way corner of the world—a queer, shabby little 
seaside resort among the salt marshes and bald white sand 
hills of Cape Henlopen. I go there—or rather my family 
goes there—every summer, and I must say that there 1s 
something very delightful to me in the ‘squalor’ of our sur- 
roundings and the delightful unconventionality of the home 
life in our little barn of a cottage. 

“However, that is apart from the question; what I began 
by saying was that this summer I was compelled to take my 
holiday earlier than usual, for we hope shortly to have that 
greatest of all blessings befall us—to give another life to 
this dear, beautiful old world. 

“T tried once or twice to write you while there, but was 
unable to gather my thoughts together—they fly abroad like 
guinea hens when I open the closed doors of my work-a-day 


life. 
[ 189 | 


HOWARD PYLE AX CHRONICES 


“We had Mr. and Mrs. Charles Parsons staying with 
us—how delightful it would have been had we but had you! 
I don’t know, however, whether you would be so fond of 
roughing it. 

“About my ‘thoughts,’ I don’t know whether you quite 
caught my idea in sending them to you. I have had them by 
me for some time, working a little now and a little then 
until, at last, I began to wonder whether, after all, I had 
not undertaken a Sisyphus task of rolling a dead stone up 
a hill—only to have it roll back again after I had got it 
fairly to the top. Of course what I have already written— 
that which you read—is the dullest and dryest of all. It is 
only digging the ground for the seed I would like to plant. 
But do I dig my ground? Am I really rolling a stone away? 
Do I prove my premises? 

“I think more of your literary judgment than of any man 
I know and that is why I sent you my preparatory lucubra- 
tions. Would you continue them if you were I? 

“You say in your letter that you wish that the thoughts 
could have been cast in a more dramatic form. That, I 
apprehend, is impossible. That which is emotional never 
convinces. The emotional argument, for instance, that the 
good God who made all things well could not create man 
to curse him with hopes that can never be fulfilled is funda- 
mentally true, but it can never convince. First prove that 
God is and is good and then the other rests sure-founded 
upon it. So, I take it, the only sure method is first to con- 
vince and then to emotionalize. . . . 

“Very sincerely your friend, 
“Flowarp Py.eg.” 


[ 190 ] 


PHILOSOPHER AND MYSTIC 


This essay embodying Howard Pyle’s thoughts on 1mmor- 
tality was never completed. In the meantime he had begun 
making illustrations for a series of Howells’s poems which 
were appearing in Harper's Monthly and which were later 
published under the title, Stops of Various Quills." In 
these poems, to quote from Delmar Gross Cooke’s literary 
study of Howells, “we feel that pessimism is assuming the 
cast and complexion of a philosophy. And it is all-per- 
vasive. Howard Pyle, who illustrates the book lavishly, 
has expressed it perfectly, albeit after the German mytho- 
logical manner of the Boecklin school. The baubles of the 
mask, the death’s head, the thorns, and the bitter chalice are 
its symbols. The fiddler Death, or the grim reaper with 
sickle and glass, stalks through its pages while angels weep 
and mortals bid him stay. Melancholia is written large 
overall. . . .” When the book was finally published and the 
original drawings were returned to the artist, he sent the 
picture of the Sphinx to Howells, who had expressed great 
admiration for it. In a letter sent simultaneously with the 
pictitesshe said,“ . . . It seemed to me that, in your 
poems, the piping Pan of your soul went up into just such 
twilight altitudes as I have tried to depict, and hearing the 
sudden dim rustle of wings, turned so to see Ais Sphinx 
crouching where she had not been before. I want you to 


have the picture for that reason. . . .”* 
The connection with Howells and the stimulus which his 


correspondence gave to Howard Pyle’s mysticism led also 
to the writing of two short stories of rather an unusual na- 
ture, “In Tenebras”* and “To the Soil of the Earth.” * 


1 Published 1895, Harper & Brothers. 

2To W. D. Howells, November 3, 1895. 

8 Harper's New Monthly Magazine, February, 1894, vol. Ixxxvili, p. 392. 
4 The Cosmopolitan, June, 1892, vol. xiii, p. 217. 


[ 191 | 


HOWARD) PYLE: AUCHRONICLSE 


Howells read and approved both, and when he was editor 
of the Cosmopolitan he accepted the second for that pub- 
lication. These stories form a fitting counterpart to Stops of 
Various Quills; they are expressive of the same pessimism, 
but combine a little more realism with their mystic qualities. 

But the greatest achievement which was the direct result 
of Howells’s influence was the writing of the novel Re- 
jected of Men, which was not published until nine years 
after it had been begun, but which was continually rewritten 
and revised during the intervening time. The scene of this 
novel was modern New York, but the plot was that of the 
influence and crucifixion of Christ, the whole transported 
with all its details from ancient Palestine to the contemporary 
American city. Everything about the story was modernized, 
but the outlines of the plot were rigidly kept just as they 
are in the Bible. When Howells read it for the first time, 
in April, 1895, he was immensely pleased with it, and 
praised it without stint. At the same time, however, he was 
afraid that no magazine would dare print it. 

Alden had read it during the preceding year, when it was 
in a much less finished state than it was when Howells 
found it so stirring. Alden wrote on July 20, 1894: 

“Much as I admire this story for certain things, I must 
confess frankly that it jars upon some sacred inviolable 
sense of the Christ and in some passages—especially the 
electrocution—is a profound shock. I appreciate your in- 
tention, and grant that you have successfully made your 
point. I cannot feel, however, that the motif justifies the 
wrench involved in the translation of the divine drama from 
its oriental environment, from the Syrian sky and the Sea 
of Galilee (where nature becomes so essential a part of this 


[192] 





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PHILOSOPHER AND MYSTIC 


singular life) to the sordid and belittling ensemble of New 
York City. 

“The situations are strong and the young man’s part is 
presented very simply and naturally; but it is disilluston- 
ment. Yes—that is what you intended; but the spiritual 
no more than the emotional life of man goes on save by 
illusion. Even the transference of the drama from Jeru- 
salem to the Augustan Rome would have involved an im- 
mense surrender. Nay, if the Christ life had been spent 
as a public ministration mainly in the city of Jerusalem in- 
stead of the Judean country, how much would have been 
lost that essentially belongs to such a life! 

“T cannot but feel that the publication of the story in our 
magazine would grieve many readers. And it would mis- 
lead many, since to many it would seem no very important 
matter whether such a Christ as is here presented were ac- 
cepted or rejected—and this I think would not agree with 
your intention. 

“I have enjoyed reading the story because to me it has 
been translated through the knowledge I have of your inti- 
mate purpose. 

“TI may be wholly wrong in my judgment of the story. 
The fact that one has a certain quality of sensibility does 
not prove that sensibility true. But I have been frank and 
you will excuse it.” 

Mr. Alden’s objections to it seemed to be those of every 
publisher to whom the book was offered. It went the 
rounds, and was repeatedly turned down. Then after a 
gap of seven years during which time it was again revised 
and materially changed it was accepted by Harper's through 
the influence of George Harvey, and published in 1903. 


[ 193 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


Howard Pyle wrote to Harpers on June 26th of that year 
concerning his feeling in regard to its publication: 

“T do not know whether I feel more of apprehension or 
more of curiosity in looking forward to the way in which 
the world will take my book Rejected of Men. Perhaps 
the world will not take it at all. 

“T suppose if a light comedian were called upon to ex- 
press his views it would hardly be expected of him to give 
a dissertation upon the tragic aspects of life. The case is 
very much the same with me; I have been so long identified 
as a writer of children’s books that the world will hardly 
be prepared to receive such curious thoughts as I have here 
tried to set forth; indeed, I am not sure that the world will 
not resent or at least deprecate such an attempt from me as 
being too wide a departure from my assigned channel of 
work. 

“The great problems of life and death have, however, 
always largely occupied my thoughts, even from my young- 
est childhood. Even in my infancy, the fear of death and 
annihilation hung over me like a cloud, and that cloud was 
not dissipated, but became rather more dark and dense as I 
advanced into youth and adolescence. I was a sceptic in 
spite of myself, for I found no one who could enlighten my 
doubts. My questions seemed only to entangle any pro- 
fessor of divinity into what seemed to be a net of inextricable 
contradictions, so that, instead of affording me some rational 
ground of belief, I saw only the absurdities of their 
arguments. 

“Accordingly, whatever change of views I may since have 
arrived at, I have had to reach by myself, by my own reason 


L194 ] 


PHILOSOPHER AND MYSTIC 


and without such outside assistance—excepting such as I 
could obtain from the writings of Swedenborg. 

“Such a self-education in reasoning makes one rather radi- 
cal in one’s opinions and I suppose that my opinions are very 
radical indeed. 

“And radical opinions impel a man to express himself al- 
most as against his own volition. So they have impelled me 
to write my book. I began it a number of years ago after 
a conversation with Mr. Alden—the editor of Harper's 
Monthly—and it was my first intention to tell only the 
story of the Rich Young Man. When I began the work, 
however, it grew under my hands into very different pro- 
portions and significance from the limitations with which it 
was begun. I think I began it about eight years ago. Since 
then I have written it and rewritten it, and reshaped it, and 
corrected it, and amended it, until it now has hardly any- 
thing of its original form. 

“TI do not know that it would ever have been completed 
had it not been for the encouragement given me from time 
to time by my friend W. D. Howells. I don’t suppose Mr. 
Howells has any idea how much he has heartened me as to 
the progress of my work from time to time, and by telling 
me how much he liked the method in which I was trying 
to embody my thought. 

“It seems to be a very short story for eight years of in- 
termittent work, but I can say it was written very earnestly 
and with great sincerity of conviction, and however the 
world may take it I have yet the satisfaction of knowing 
that I have said my say with every sentiment of reverence 
and very strong belief in that which I was trying to say.” 

Rejected of Men, when it did finally appear, did not make 


[195 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: ASCHROWICLE 


any great stir in the literary world. Since it appeared over 
the name of Howard Pyle, who was too well known as a 
writer of children’s books, it probably never had a chance 
among the seasoned readers of novels; but to a small group 
of intelligently interested persons it brought a new idea, and 
a vital subject for discussion. One friend of the author’s, 
James H. Canfield, librarian at Columbia University, found 
the book so stimulating that he circulated it among various 
of his clergymen acquaintances in order to get their impres- 
sions. Ina letter to Howard Pyle dated June 22, 1904, he 
quoted the following as coming from a leading New York 
minister: | 

“<I write to report that I have read Rejected of Men by 
Howard Pyle, as you suggested: with growing interest and, 
finally, with entire admiration. The audacity of it is simply 
stupendous, and the success so simply achieved, with such 
sharp delineation of character and of environment, and with 
such marked ultra-modern contrasts as effective as they are 
bizarre, is a triumph of psychology and a masterpiece of 
dramatic inventiveness. And the queer viewpoint and weird 
mystery of the whole tale amid its matter-of-factness, and 
the unearthly—yet most earthly—inconclusiveness of it all, 
are thrilling and extraordinary. Pyle is the Richard Strauss 
of historical portraiture and reproduction! 

“Then the artistry of its conception and execution in de- 
tail, the power of social perspective in drawing with its sharp 
class separation of people and experiences so near and yet so 
far—is not all this remarkable? 

“Yet what to do with it? how to use it? how to utilize 
and pass on the impression made upon myself? ‘This at 


[196 ] 


PHILOSOPHER AND MYSTIC 


present puzzles me; and in Ciceronian-Catalinian language, 
is evasive and elusive. 

““But enough—although much more thinking must be 
done, even if talking stops. I shall ruminate and reflect 
much.’ ” 

In reply to another one of Canfield’s letters Howard 
Pyle gives a very interesting sidelight on some of the 
other criticisms which were not so favorable: 

“. . . I judge from your letter to Dr. MacCracken that 
he has taken some exception to the rather hard and unlovely 
characterization I have felt obliged to give my image of the 
Christ. He is not the only one who has taken such exception. 

“I may say that I purposely made my picture of the 
Master in that guise because, looking upon Him with the 
eyes of a Pharisee, that would be the way in which I would 
behold Him. For so it was that He appeared to all the 
Scribes, Pharisees, and Levites of His day. If I had made 
Him otherwise I would not have told my story with the 
fidelity that is its only excuse. Had I made Him unrepel- 
Jant it would not at all have demonstrated why it was that 
He was rejected of intelligent men. 

“T suppose this point, though obvious, is rather subtle. 
At any rate it has been widely overlooked by many of my 
friends. One unusually intelligent critic said to me, ‘I do 
not see that it would matter whether one did or did not ac- 
cept a belief in such a Christ as that—,’ entirely overlooking 
the fact that his own remark was the strongest corroborative 
proof possible of the contention in my book. For I think I 
may say that I have not in any particular departed from the 
exact and literal statement of the facts as we have them. 
. . . It may also, perhaps, be incidentally interesting to you 


[197] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


to know that I had the work by me for eight or ten years 
before publishing it, so that it represents a mature and not 
a hasty opinion of my subject.” 

A far superior book, however, to Rejected of Men, far 
more expressive of the spiritual nature of its author, was 
The Garden Behind the Moon, which was published in 
1896. In February, 1889, both Mr. and Mrs. Pyle went to 
Jamaica for a short trip, leaving their only son in Wilming- 
ton with Mrs. Pyle’s mother. During their absence he was 
taken sick and died before the parents could be reached. 
It was to both Mr. and Mrs. Pyle a terrific and staggering 
blow, the effects of which could not easily be softened, but 
the father found some outlet for his grief in the writing 
of this book. There is more poetry, more beauty in it than 
in any other of his productions, and it is movingly sad. It 
sets forth in an allegorical way the very mystical theory of 
life and death at which the author had arrived after years 
of questioning. 

The only explanation we have from the author as to the 


meaning of the allegory is in the following letter to Miss 
Phoebe Griffith: 


«. . . There is indeed an intended inner meaning to 


The Garden Behind the Moon, but to explain it would 
require a long dissertation at the end of which that certain 
indefinable mystery with which I intended to surround the 
story would be altogether dissipated. 

“T may tell you so much as this, although you probably 
have guessed it for yourself, that the Moon Angel repre- 
sents the Angel of Death, and the Garden means that place 
in the other life to which little children go after they live 
the life of the world and before their minds and faculties 


[ 198 ] 


PHILOSOPHER AND MYSTIC 


are yet developed; that the Iron Man means not only the 
temptations, but the knowledges which belong to this world 
from which higher endeavor and diviner purpose must be 
rescued ere it can develop into full freedom of life; that 
the boy represents a certain spiritual purpose by means of 
which we overcome the temptations and knowledges of the 
world. 

“There are many other things intended in the story, chief 
of which is the marriage between the inner and divine life 
and the spiritual purpose of manhood, which, however, I can 
hardly make clear to you ina letter. . . .” 

In addition to these two books—Rejected of Men and 
The Garden Behind the Moon—which are interpretative of 
the mystical side of Howard Pyle’s character, there are a 
number of illustrations which do almost as much to bring 
it out. There is the series of pictures for Edwin Markham’s 
“Man with the Hoe” published in 1900, concerning one of 
which—that for the “Song of Peace”—Augustus St. Gau- 
dens said, “. . . The virility and poetry and the beauty 
of it are remarkable. . . .”* Howard Pyle himself wrote 
in regard to these pictures: 

“I do not know why it is that I should have drifted into 
the position of an illustrator of what is sometimes called the 
‘poetical essay.’ 

“Some years ago I began illustrating the occasional poems 
of W. D. Howells which were afterward collected into a 
volume called Stops of Various Quills. 

“Whether or not the illustrations were very successful 
I do not know, but since then I have every now and then 
been called upon to illustrate a poem of the analytical sort. 


* Letter to Howard Pyle, June 20, 1902. 


[ 199 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


“T think the music and the lilt of Mr. Markham’s poems 
lift them quite above the level of the rhymed essay. The 
music and the rhythm catch your ear before your mind 
grasps the substantial thought which they clothe and the fact 
that there is thought behind adds in no small degree to the 
enjoyment of his oftentimes ornate wording. Oftentimes 
the songs possess a great metrical beauty and even in the 
more somber verses there is a rhythmic stride that catches 
the ear like the music of the measured tramp of many feet. 

“This at least is my own feeling towards Markham’s 
poems and they added in no small degree to my pleasure in 
illustrating them. 

“Such illustrations are not very easy to make, there are 
so many requirements demanded by such text. There is no 
palpable feeling to seize upon. The illustrations should be 
somber and yet at the same time not devoid of a certain 
at least decorative beauty; they should in no instance limit 
or circumscribe the idea—upon the contrary they should 
carry forward the thought of the author—not upon the 
same line but upon a closely parallel line. 

“This of course is very difficult of achievement. In look- 
ing over my illustrations I feel that I have fallen far short 
of achievement. Nevertheless, the effort itself has carried 
with it a very distinct and cumulative pleasure. . . .”* 

And then there was the marvelous group of paintings for 
The Century which was entitled “The Travels of the Soul,” 
and which, beautifully reproduced in full color, was the des- 
pair and admiration of many rival artists in the winter of 
1902. 

Howard Pyle had to an immense degree the power of 


*Letter to Doubleday, Page & Company, December 4, 1900. 
[ 200 | 


PHILOSOPHER AND MYSTIC 


moving one to mystical thoughts both with his pictures and 
with his written words. There is an indefinable quality 
about his productions of the spiritual kind which render 
them distinct and stimulating. The soft, clear expression 
of his mysticism is often more convincing and decidedly 
more moving than the outpourings of many mystic philos- 
ophers. One little anecdote, as given in a correspondence 
with Richard Watson Gilder, will show what a subtle, per- 
suasive and beautiful turn his prose explanation of his spir- 
itual ideas could take, and at the same time will show the 
extreme difficulty he had in writing them. The Century 
had accepted a picture entitled “Hope and Memory” which 
he had painted some years before, and when they were about 
to publish it Gilder wrote on December 4, 1900: 

“With regard to that interesting picture of yours which 
we wish to print, ‘Hope and Memory,’ could you not send 
us a few lines—a prose poem, if you wish, or a Biblical chant 
—no matter how brief—putting into words the thought that 
you meant to convey?” 

To this Howard Pyle replied, “I have meditated without 
any result upon some text for my ‘Hope and Memory’ pic- 
ture. Whatever is written should, it seems to me, have the 
ring of poetry about it and I am tone deaf as to poetry— 
I can neither write it nor understand it very well when it is 
written. 

“My Muse has sweated over the task that you have set 
me to do. She has sat upon occasions for maybe an hour 
at a time without producing any result and I do not believe 
that it is possible for her to do the work demanded of her. 

“If I may make a suggestion it would be as follows. You 
may know that I have illustrated Edwin Markham’s book of 

[ 201 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


poems. I think he would be able to write the verse to go 
with the picture and if he will do so the Muse above spoken 
of will most joyfully make you the very best pen-and-ink 
decorations for it that she is able to produce. .. .” 

Gilder preferred to have Edith Thomas write the verses, 
and requested that the artist write a short account of just 
what he meant to portray in the picture, in order that Miss 
Thomas might have something as a basis for her poem. 
This Howard Pyle did, and when Mr. Gilder received what 
had been written, he hastened to inform the author, “You 
don’t suppose I would let anybody rewrite that prose poem. 
Oh! no. Very many thanks.” * 


* Letter from Richard Watson Gilder, January 29, 1901. 


[ 202 | 


CHAPTER X 
SCHOOLS AND THEORIES OF ART 


Jif Tia , after eighteen years of unremitting work as 
an illustrator, Howard Pyle had firmly established 


himself as a master of his profession, he began to feel a 
pressing desire to pass on to others the knowledge which he 
had gained from so much experience. His opinions on art 
instruction were by no means orthodox; they were out- 
growths of successful practical work, unimpeded by the cant 
of any schools of artistic method. He himself had risen 
largely by dint of his own application and energy, without 
the aid of long study abroad and without very much school- 
ing at home; in the light of this success, he was confident 
that he could materially help the younger generation of art- 
ists by showing them how he had learned to master his art, 
and by freeing them from the cramping influence of the 
methods usually taught in the academies and schools. Ac- 
cordingly, when the Drexel Institute of Arts and Sciences 
in Philadelphia asked him to conduct a class in illustration 
during the winter of 1894-1895, he immediately accepted 
the offer, and in October undertook his new duties. This 
was the beginning of a career of teaching which was to last 
almost to the end of his life. 

In the roll of this first class in illustration at the Drexel 
Institute were thirty-six names, among which were those of 
Violet Oakley, Jessie Willcox Smith, and Maxfield Parrish, 
With this group of enthusiasts he worked endlessly and tire- 


[ 203 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


lessly, putting into operation all the ideas and theories which 
he had gleaned from the preceding years of his work. All 
winter long he went back and forth from Wilmington to 
Philadelphia once every week to superintend the study of 
these promising young men and women. His interest was 
thoroughly aroused; he was determined to make a contribu- 
tion to teaching that would immeasurably aid his pupils in 
their upward struggles. Such excellent results were mani- 
fest after this first year that the success of the class was 
assured. Howard Pyle became almost immediately the cen- 
ter of art instruction in Philadelphia and one of the most 
celebrated teachers of illustration in America. But his class 
was so rapidly increasing in numbers that steps had to be 
taken to keep it from growing too large. He decided that 
he could do more service by limiting membership in it to 
advanced students only, to those who were almost ready 
to begin on some phase of practical work. Part of a letter 
written to a prospective student will give an idea of what 
the aims were: “ ... My class was formed more for the 
purpose of encouraging imaginative drawing in the more 
advanced students, and to teach a pupil how not to copy 
the life model until the pupil knows how to copy it. The 
parallel in music would be the avoidance of mechanical pre- 
cision in playing the notes and the run of the scales. You 
must first know how to play the scales accurately and strike 
the chords with precision, and then you may be taught how 
to avoid that same mechanical precision. . . . It is too often 
thought that illustrative art requires less practice than paint- 
ing in colors. The fact is that it requires a great deal more 
knowledge and much more freedom of technique; for I 
observe that our painters who come from abroad are very 


[ 204 | 





“There Cap’n Goldsack goes creeping, creeping, creeping, 


Looking for his treasure down below!” 
From 


Car’n GOLpsack 
Harper's Magazine, 1902 





SCHOOLS AND THEORIES OF ART 


often unable to illustrate, while the illustrator (if he chooses 
to do so) may paint successful pictures. . . .”? 

A further expression of his views occurs in a letter to Dr. 
McAlister, the president of the Drexel Institute: 

“, . . Two young men came to my class from the 
Academy of Design. Both of them had studied thoroughly 
from life, and I was told that one of them (I cannot now 
remember his name) had made the best drawing from the 
nude that was made in Philadelphia. I set them to work 
before the draped model, telling them not to copy the 
model but to make a picture, and I explained what was the 
difference between creative and imitative art. These two 
students knew absolutely nothing as to real creative art— 
the one who was so great at drawing from the nude was 
dazed and bewildered in front of his board, and there was 
not one single touch he put to the canvas that was right. 
The very youngest member of my Composition Class could 
have made a better attempt than he. His best knowledge 
was only a huge accumulation of dead, inert matter in which 
there was not one single little spark of réal life, and—though 
I hope in this I may be wrong—I question whether any re- 
construction of this knowledge is possible with him. 

“We must not let our students—young beginners with 
tender, growing lives—we must not let them grow into such 
rank and fruitless maturity. But how shall we reach them? 

“I think first of all that they should be taught in the very 
beginning to believe that all they are learning of technique 
is only a dead husk in which must be enclosed the divine life 
of creative impulse. I think they should be stimulated to 
think things out of doors—to talk of living things and to 


*Letter to Miss Sanford, September 25, 1896. 


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HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


draw them, describing them maybe in words as well as in 
picturesn. vane aan 

At the beginning of his third year at the Drexel Insti- 
tute, Howard Pyle began to have what amounted to com- 
plete control of the entire Art Department. The following 
letter to Dr. McAlister gives something of his plans, and 
shows very clearly how he had thrown himself body and 
soul into this attempt to benefit young artists: “. .. It 
seems to me that both a day class and a night class might be 
established, its aim being to work from a life model draped 
in costume instead of being nude. . . . I would do my best 
to instruct them in such knowledge as I myself possess in 
drawing the living figure into my picture. 

“Tn sounding the students I find them enthusiastic in their 
desire to embark upon such a course of study, and they tell 
me that the only difficulty would be that such classes would 
be too large—a generous fault, I think... . 

“This work of a draped life class should not, of course, 
interfere with my lectures—it should supplement them. I 
think my lectures are useful, but I think they only give in 
theory that which I want here to render practical to all. 
There are in Europe classes similar to this that I suggest, 
but none, I think, that devote the attention of the students 
to accomplish such really practical results as those at which 
I aim. 

“T am very desirous of helping the coming generation of 
artists, and if I could hope to accomplish the purpose which 
I have in mind, I would be very glad to give two full days 
of each week to the Drexel Institute. . . . In those days I 
would come early to Philadelphia and would devote the first 


* Letter to Dr. James McAlister, October 6, 1896. 


[ 206 | 


SCHOOLS AND THEORIES OF ART 


half hour or so to seeing and talking with any student who 
might like to consult me concerning his or her work. I 
would then go through the Art Schools from the primary 
department to the life class, giving, so far as I am able to 
give it, an opinion on the work done—holding in view the 
fact that it should be directed not to academic perfection, 
but to final use in the actual world of Art. . 

“In the afternoon I would deliver a lecture such as I 
have been doing in the last two years. In the evening I 
would criticise the night class from the draped model, say 
from half past seven to half past nine or from eight to ten 
o'clock. I recognize that this may be a great burden to un- 
dertake, but I feel myself to be very strong physically, and 
I think that I would be able to accomplish it at least for one 
season and until the work of the Institute stands upon a more 
solid ground than it seems to stand upon at present... . 

“T stand prepared to give to the Institute all the assist- 
ance I can. I know of no better legacy a man can leave to 
the world than that he had aided others to labor at an art 
so beautiful as that to which I have devoted my life. . . .”? 

The immense personal interest which he took in his indi- 
vidual pupils is exemplified in a letter to one of them: “. . . 
I do not recognize, as you do, that you failed in your first 
attempt in my class. If you had done so I do not see that 
it would have been of any matter, for you are beginning 
upon something so entirely new and foreign to all methods 
of teaching that it is not possible but that we shall both 
meet with failures in the beginning, I in imparting knowl- 
edge and you in receiving it. 

“TI cannot tell you how weighted down with responsibility 


* Letter to Dr. James McAlister, April 7, 1896. 


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HOWARD: PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


of you all I was after the morning’s class. It was not that 
I was discouraged with your work at all, but that in seeing 
the futile attempts with which some of you began I realized 
how much the responsibility of your success or failure 
weighed upon myself. I felt your discouragement as keenly 
as though it had been my own, but you must have courage to 
learn and to persist in your endeavor or else the burden of 
your discouragement will lay upon me also. 

“In such moments of discouragement as I felt yesterday 
I always feel within myself that after all we are only here 
to learn in this life that which we shall carry forward in 
the life to come. In that life the flower of perfection will 
not spring from the things in which we have succeeded, but 
from the things in which we have failed. Were this life all 
that we had to live, such disappointments would be terrible 
indeed, but as it is not the only life we have to live they are 
only the seed implanted for the rich fulfillment. All this 
I would have liked to have said to you instead of writing 
it, and I want you to have courage to go on with your work 
which is so much more beautiful and worthy than you think 
ICRA Sa 

As Howard Pyle developed his methods of teaching, he 
conceived the idea that the truest criterion for judging the 
work of pupils was the practical use of the work which they 
produced. He wrote early in the fall of 1896 to Clyde De 
Land, “ . . . You will learn more in one week of actual 
work to be reproduced in public print, than you can learn 
in two months of school study, for in actual work there is 
none of the fancied excellencies which govern consideration 
of school work. There is a sort of academic trick in drawing 


* Letter to Miss Jessie Dodd, October 6, 1896. 


[ 208 ]} 


SCHOOLS AND THEORIES OF ART 


from life that appeals to the teacher and pupils, and from 
observation in life I find that students are very often given 
great credit for school work without having in the least a 
shade of artistic ability. When you are making pictures to 
be reproduced in print you are then given no favor and your 
pictures must be good as pictures or else they are of no pos- 
sible use. . . .” With this idea in mind he began trying 
out various productions of his pupils on the art editors of 
Harper & Brothers and other publishing houses. These 
pictures were oftentimes accepted and many of the pupils 
began to make almost enough money to support themselves. 
This system of sending on to the magazines the paintings 
produced under his supervision rapidly became one of the 
most important elements of his teaching. “He was insistent, 
however, that none should be used except those pictures 
which, in the opinions of the art editors, were worthy of be- 
ing reproduced; that anything should have been accepted 
simply through his influence would have been revolting to 
his sense of justice. He wrote to Edward Penfield, who 
was then art editor for Harpers: “ . . . I appreciate en- 
tirely the generosity of the Harpers exhibited towards my 
pupils, their unremitting kindness to myself and their inter- 
est in that which interests me. At the same time I do not 
wish the work of my pupils to be accepted upon the ground 
of charity, for not only would such a stand become very 
burdensome to yourself, but it would not allow me upon my 
part to ascertain what is the relation that my pupils’ work 
occupies in proportion to that of other illustrative artists. 
My chief idea is not that my class shall earn money through 
the kindness of my friends the publishers, but that I shall 
[ 209 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


be able to know whether my instruction is producing the 
required results. . . .” 

In 1898, with the co-operation of the authorities of the 
Drexel Institute, Howard Pyle established a summer class 
at Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. He felt that to a limited 
number of pupils he could give during the summer months 
so intensive and so practical a training that it would repay 
any sacrifice which he might have to make. The Drexel 
Institute agreed to give scholarships to a certain number of 
talented pupils; he on his side was to give instruction with- 
out receiving any salary. An old mill on the banks of the 
Brandywine, just across the road from the historic Wash- 
ington and Lafayette headquarters, was turned into a studio, 
and the meadows around were used for all sorts of out-door 
sketching. Here on the site of the battle of the Brandy- 
wine, he taught his young protégés, among other things, to 
draw the Revolutionary soldier, taught them so well that 
when Collier’s was about to publish Paul Leicester Ford’s 
Janice Meredith he was able to secure for his pupils the 
illustrating of it. The keynote of the Summer School was 
work. All day long he kept the young men and women 
at their easels, inspiring them with the enthusiasm which he 
had always at his command. Then, oftentimes in the eve- 
ning, he and Mrs. Pyle would entertain them at the big 
country house in which they lived during the summers. 
Every now and then he would give them a day off, and 
they would all go on a picnic to Valley Forge or some other 
interesting place in the surrounding country. There was 
thus a considerable social life, which provided for the young 
people relaxation from the intense training to which they 
were subjected. The Summer School was so successful that 

[ 210 | 


SCHOOLS AND THEORIES OF ART 


it was repeated during the following summer, and would in 
all probability have become a regular part of the Drexel 
Institute, had not Howard Pyle resigned from his position 
there in 1900. 

Toward the end of the first Summer School, he wrote 
Dr. McAlister: “A week from tomorrow our Summer 
School closes. I think we have produced some very good 
results, though I am not sure that the high achievement for 
which I was ambitious has been entirely attained. I dare 
say I expect too much of my students, but I think it is better 
to expect too much than too little. Upon the whole, I think 
next winter we will find that our summer class has pro- 
duced results which, if they do not eventually fully repay 
the Drexel Institute in money for its expenditure, will, at 
least, entirely recompense us in the increased excellence of 
our students’ work. By the end of the summer we will have 
illustrated five books containing somewhat upwards of fifty 
drawings; we will have made about a dozen very excellent 
landscapes and have accomplished four studies of the draped 
figure, of which three examples each—say, twelve examples 
in all—may be exhibited this coming fall with credit to the 
students and to the Drexel Institute... .”* And again 
after the school had closed: “ ... I cannot but feel that 
the generosity of the Drexel Institute to its art students has, 
in this Summer School, performed a very great work. In 
our efforts to build up an Art School upon the useful and 
practical lines that have been laid down for it, nothing, in 
my opinion, has so far advanced those endeavors as the work 
of this school during the past season. In two instances a 
doubtful student has been converted into an artist of very 


1Letter to Dr. James McAlister, August 24, 1898. 


[ 211 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


decided promise. And all the students of the class have 
shown more advance in two months of summer study than 
they have in a year of ordinary instruction. This, of course, 
might have been largely due to the fact of the contact of 
the students with nature and of their free and wholesome 
life in the open air. Their labors were assiduous and unre- 
laxing, their recreation being taken only in the evenings. 
They prepared for work by eight in the morning, and they 
rarely concluded their labors until five or six in the after- 
noon. The result of this close application shows I think in 
our exhibition. 

“Tn this outline of our summer work I make no mention 
of the brighter and happier coloring which your bounty 
brought so generously into these young lives. Apart from 
the great and abundant happiness they enjoyed, they were 
able also to earn considerable amounts of money from their 
art work. 

“Another season I will volunteer, as I have during the 
past summer, to give my instruction gratuitously to a sum- 
mer class.” * 

At the close of the second session, he again wrote to 
Dr. McAlister: “. . . Though the work done by the pupils 
during the past summer is perhaps not so great in number of 
examples finished for exhibition purposes, it is yet in many 
respects of the highest order achieved in our Institute. Each 
pupil has been working throughout the summer at a single 
composition made originally by the individual. These have 
been worked up into finished pictures in more or less full 
color. I had photographs taken of these examples of work 
and showed them to my friends Harper & Brothers. These 

*Letter to Dr. James McAlister, October 12, 1898. 
[212] 


SCHOOLS AND THEORIES OF ART 
pee NE LIEU OF ART 


publishers were so pleased with the work that they have 
expressed a willingness to publish all or nearly all of the 
drawings made by the Summer School in Harper's Weekly, 
and also others done through the season under the auspices 
of the Class of Illustration at the Institute. . . . Besides 
these examples of full work, one of the pupils has made 
two illustrations for McClure’s Magazine, and others have 
illustrated books for Houghton, Mifflin & Company, and 
Dodd, Mead & Company. This has consumed, of course, 
a part of the summer, but my chief instruction has been 
directed to the perfection of our Institute work, and those 
people who have been delayed in the finishing thereof be- 
cause of these important books undertaken are remaining 
here at their own expense to complete the Drexel Institute 
lass work. ... .?* 

Early in 1900 Howard Pyle began to feel that he was not 
accomplishing enough at the Drexel Institute to warrant his 
giving up two days of his time every week. He, accordingly, 
in the following letter resigned his position, and his resigna- 
tion was unwillingly accepted: “ ... I find myself im- 
pelled herewith to resign my position as Instructor of the Art 
Department of the Drexel Institute. . . . 

“(1) My time is very valuable, and now that I feel my- 
self quite matured in my art knowledges, I think it both un- 
wise and wrong to expend my time in general teaching. (2) 
The great majority of a class as large as that which I teach 
at the Drexel Institute is hopelessly lacking in all possibility 
of artistic attainment. (3) There are only one or two who 
can really receive the instruction which I give. (4) To im- 


"Letter to Dr. James McAlister, September 21, 1899, 


[213] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


part this instruction to these two or three who can receive 
it appears to be unfair to the others who do not receive such 
particular instruction. (5) This apparent favoritism upon 
my part must inevitably tend to disrupt the Art School or 
to make the large majority discontented with the instruction 
which they receive in contrast with that which the few re- 
ceive; nor is it possible to assure such discontented pupils 
that that which I give them is far more abundant and far 
more practical than that which they could receive from any 
other Art Institute—the fact remains in their minds that 
they are not given that which I give to other pupils and that 
apparently there is favoritism in the Class. , 

“This position forces upon me two alternatives. The first 
is not to impart such particular instruction but to confine 
myself to general teaching; the other is to abandon general 
instruction for the particular instruction of a few pupils. Of 
these two alternatives the first I cannot accept, for my time 
is too valuable, and I will not consent to give merely gen- 
eral instruction without the hope of producing a few worthy 
and useful students. 

“CAs to the second alternative it is palpable that the Drexel 
Institute could not afford to maintain so expensive a school 
as a School of Illustration for the benefit of some four or 
five pupils. Hence my reason for resigning. 

“T cannot close my letter without expressing to you my 
deep and heartfelt thanks for the kindness and sympathy 
and the generosity that has always marked the attitude of 
yourself and the authorities of the Drexel Institute 
toward me and my pupils.... It is also with great 
pride that I am able to point to the fact that no school in 
this country—perhaps no school in the world—has pro- 


[ 214 ] 


WHO SHALL BE CAPTAIN? 


From 


Tue BuccANeEERS 
Harper’s Magazine, 1911 








SCHOOLS AND THEORIES OF ART 


duced such great results with such limited material as the 
Drexel Institute has achieved.” 1 

A little before this, January 27, he had written to J. Henry 
Flarper: “ .. . It isa great disappointment to me that my 
teaching at the Drexel Institute has not done more than it 
has, and I have given the matter no small consideration. 
The first thing, obviously, to do is to resign my position 
as teacher of the School of Illustration, for I cannot waste 
my time in teaching mediocrity. . . . It now remains to turn 
my acquired knowledge of teaching to some real account. 
To this end the following plan has suggested itself to me: 

“That I build here in Wilmington a studio or set of 
studios adjoining my own studio; that I gather together in 
these studios some six or nine pupils, singling them out, not 
from Philadelphia alone, but from the larger schools in 
other important cities, such as New York, Boston, and 
Chicago. 

“I propose giving my instruction gratuitously, expecting 
the students to pay only a small rental to cover the interest 
upon the money invested in the building. They would, be- 
sides, have to pay for their models and for heating the 
building in winter. Beyond this there would be no expense 
for instruction, and I think that from seven to ten dollars 
a month (exclusive of the hire of models) would be all that 
they would be called upon to pay. 

“In the meantime I would endeavor to throw in their way 
all the illustration of the best class that I could obtain, thus 
endeavoring to instruct them first of all to make their art 
useful before turning it in the direction of color work. I 
also think that by doing such illustrative work they would 


* Letter to Dr. James McAlister, February 14, 1900. 


[215 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


not only be able to pay their expenses of studio rent but even 
to provide their living expenses as well. . . .” 3 


By March 17, his plans were well developed. On that 
day he wrote to Edward Penfield: “ ... My final aim 
in teaching will not be essentially the production of illus- 
trators of books, but rather the production of painters of 
pictures. For I believe that the painters of true American 
Art are yet to be produced. Such men as Winslow Homer 
and Fuller in figure painting, and a group of landscape 
painters headed by George Inness as yet are almost the only 
occupants of the field. To this end I regard magazine and 
book illustration as a ground from which to produce 
DAinters eos s 

“My plan of teaching, as it grows in my mind, is some- 
what as follows: the students who come to me will be 
supposed to have studied drawing and painting as taught 
in the schools. My first object shall be to teach them to 
paint the draped and costumed model so that it shall possess 
the essentials of a practical picture. To teach this requires 
considerable knowledge not usually possessed by the artist- 
teachers in the schools, and this knowledge I feel myself 
competent to impart. I believe I am not devoid of a sense 
of color and I trust I will be able so to instruct the pupil 
as to preserve whatever color talent he may possess. 

“My experience is that within a year of such teaching 
the pupil will be sufficiently grounded in a practical knowl- 
edge of painting to be able to embark upon illustrative 
work. 

“T shall make it a requisite that the pupils whom I choose 


[ 216 | 


SCHOOLS AND THEORIES OF ART 


shall possess, first of all, imagination; secondly, artistic 
ability; thirdly, color and drawing; and I shall probably 
not accept any who are deficient in any one of these three 
requisites. It is needless for me to say that my opinions 
as to the requisites of color and form may not be the same 
as those entertained by the art schools. . . . | 

“My instruction... would embrace not only daily 
criticism of the work done in the class, but also instruction 
in composition, Facial and Figure Construction, Anatomy, 
Perspective, and Proportion. I shall give lectures perhaps 
twice a week in the evenings... . ” 

The school was accordingly founded. Nearly all of the 
first members were from the old class at the Drexel Insti- 
tute, but gradually, as people heard of the new idea that 
was being worked out in Wilmington, there began to be 
applications for admission from all over the United States. 
In 1903, there were between two and three hundred such 
applications, but only three of the aspirants were admitted. 
Howard Pyle used the utmost discrimination in making his 
choices. Among the young men and women who attended 
the school were Stanley Arthurs, Frank Schoonover, N. C. 
Wyeth, Harvey Dunn, Thornton Oakley, Ida Daugherty, 
W. J. Aylward, and George Harding, each of whom has 
since done commendable work in the field of art. 

In 1904, Howard Pyle again began to feel that he ought 
to be passing on the fruits of his knowledge to a greater 
body of young people than it was possible for him to have 
around him in Wilmington. He explains what he wanted 
to do in the following letter to J. H. Chapin, the art editor 
of Scribner’s Monthly: 

[217 |] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


“J want to write to you about a matter that has occupied 
my mind during the past several months. 

“The year that has passed has convinced me that I really 
am of use to the younger artists through the advice and 
criticism which I give them, for it has been my happy lot 
to establish several young lives, and I think it likely that 
some of my pupils will reach unusual distinction in their 
profession. I am speaking very intimately to you when 
I say that I feel that this is due, in some measure, to my 
instruction—I am sure that the ideals with which I have 
inspired them are both broad and large. It has occurred 
to me that I might broaden my work by extending it to 
New York, and I want to ask you as a special favor, to 
tell me very frankly what you think of such an idea. 

“In general, my thought is, that I should come on every 
two weeks upon Saturday, and should deliver lectures upon 
composition as I do here in Wilmington, and that I should 
take the opportunity of criticizing and of advising with 
young artists concerning their pictures. It occurred to me 
that I might give an hour to such criticism and an hour to 
a composition lecture—the one, say from four to five, and 
the other from five to six. I should like to make such 
lectures free to all who would care to attend, and to give 
my services without charge, though I think that such a 
class should pay my traveling expenses, which would amount 
to not more than fifteen dollars for each trip from here 
to New York. 

“If such a plan is worth while, and if it could be put into 
operation, I would like it to be conducted under the auspices 
of the Art Students’ League. I wish you would consider 
this matter, and give me your mature thoughts upon it. 

[218 | 


SCHOOLS AND THEORIES OF ART 


There is splendid material in New York, and it would be 
a great happiness to me if I could feel that my quarter of 
a century of experience and knowledge could be of any 
benefit to American Art—both illustrative and otherwise.” ? 

Chapin was at once enthusiastic about the plan, and 
through his influence the interest of the Art League was 
speedily aroused. Thus the lectures began almost immedi- 
ately. Although the authorities at the League, during the 
winter that the lectures were continued, felt that Howard 
Pyle was doing an inestimable service to the young artists, 
he himself never considered his work there a success. He 
was never able to give the individual attention to each pupil 
that was so necessary an adjunct to his method of teaching. 

He wrote to Chapin on May 8, 1905: “ . . . Iam about 
closing my series of lectures before the young artists at the 
Art Students’ League, and I think you will be interested to 
know that the effort has not been a success—indeed, I think 
it has been a decided failure. . 

“T think that my advice and criticism is not felt to be so 
useful as I had hoped it might be. This is a great regret 
to me, because I feel so sure that many of the knowledges 
which I have acquired in the nearly thirty years of my work 
would be of a very great deal of use to those who are only 
beginning. But it is quite in line with the old adage that 
a man may be very willing to pump, but he cannot make 
the animals drink. 7 

“T feel that it is very possible for the illustrative work 
of the magazine to be carried to a much higher plane of 
solidity than it has yet attained to; for at present it gives 
the impression, at least to me, of being thin, ephemeral, and 


* Letter to J. H. Chapin, October 4, 1904. 


[ 219 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


superficial. My own work is perhaps heavy, and lacking in 
brilliancy, but I do not see why it is not quite possible to 
have both brilliancy and solidity. Just now the world de- 
mands brilliancy and originality; but you know how fashions 
change, and when the demand—which seems to me to be 
very near—shall be made for something more solid, I do 
not see where it is to come from. The Gibson-Hutt school 
of illustration is bound to have its day and to pass, and 
when it is gone, I do not see that there will be anything 
at all left behind that will be worth keeping. There are 
very strong young talents in the world of illustration, and 
I am only sorry that my little dip into the young art life of 
New York should not have inspired the wish upon their 
part to take advantage of my experience. 

“T know all this sounds very egotistical and self-assured 
but I believe I am quite losing sight of my own self in the 
matter—at least, I am writing very frankly to you. After 
all, whatever is, is right, and it is doubtless better that the 
young art should learn its own truths instead of having 
them interjected by another man. I have offered my 
services to the cause, but I shall not repine that those to 
whom they were offered desired to obtain their knowledge 
in another way.” 


During all these years of strenuous activity both in crea- 
tive work and in instruction, he had been developing theories 
of what American Art should be, and by what methods it 
would be possible to produce it. The following extracts 
from a few of his letters will give his ideas in some detail, 
particularly as to the inadequacy of the American Art 
Schools. 

[ 220 | 


SCHOOLS AND THEORIES OF ART 


To W. M. R. French of the Chicago Art Institute. 
“September 28, 1903. 
|. . I believe I wrote you that I was invited by Yale 
University to deliver their annual address to the Art School 
last June. The subject which I chose was entitled ‘The 
Art of the Age,’ and I endeavored in this to explain my 
understanding of the difference between the Art of the past 
and the Art that is demanded by the present age. I some- 
how felt that my ideas were not altogether pleasing to the 
University people, for they were very radical and I stated 
very clearly and concisely my opinion that our age and our 
times require an art that, if not distinctly different from 
the Art of the past, is, at least, an adaptation and completion 


»P] 


of the art of the past to fit our present needs. .. . 


To W. M. R. French. 
“April 10, 1905. 

«¢.. . I am very much interested in art education, and 
my ideas upon that subject are an evolution of ten years, 
in which I have not followed academic instruction and in 
which I have endeavored to alter and amend my art instruc- 
tion so as to fit it to the needs of the young American artist 
as I have known him. 

“My opinion is that art education in this country does 
not fit the needs of the case, and my connection with art 
education in New York during the past year confirms me 
still more strongly in my views. Nor do I believe that art 
education abroad affords a solution of the question of techni- 
cal training to the young artist. I think that the young artist 
is overshadowed by the technical accumulation of foreign 

[ 221 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


education, which, excellent as it is, does not lend itself to 
the fulfillment of a characteristic American Art. 

“Such an art is not one that can be built up in a few years; 
it must, to my mind, be a growth in which the technique 
of picture-making adapts itself to the needs of the case, and 
I do not believe that the accumulation of a marvellous 
technical facility which our American artists acquire abroad 
tends to a corresponding increase either of originality 
or imagination. I rather think it tends to subordinat- 
ing originality and imagination to technical methods of 
Pantin. se ene 


To W. M. R. French. 
“April. 13) 1005: 

« |. . It may be well for me to state that in general my 
opinion is that pictures are creations of the imagination and 
not of technical facility, and that that which art students most 
need is the cultivation of their imagination and its direction 
into practical and useful channels of creation—and I hold 
that this is exactly in line with all other kinds of profes- 
sional education, whether of law, finance, medicine, or 
physics. I would not belittle the necessity of accurate 
technical training. I insist upon that in my own school even 
more strenuously than it is insisted upon in the great art 
schools of the country; but I subordinate that technical 
training entirely to the training of the imagination. .. . ” 


To Dr. James H. Canfield of Columbia University. 
“April 77, .00m8 
« |. . This winter I have been lecturing in New York, 
as you know, every two weeks, and have thus come some- 
; [ 222 ] 


SCHOOLS AND THEORIES OF ART 


what in contact with the art schools of the Metropolis. 
I cannot very well make you understand my regret and 
sorrow at finding them so poor and so inadequate to fill 
the demands of a progressive art. I doubt if there is a 
single really excellent art school now available in New 
York. There is not a New York School comparable either 
in energy or equipment to the schools of Philadelphia, of 
Chicago, or even of Brooklyn. .. . 

“As conditions now exist, each art school endeavors to 
hold its pupils by giving them a quick and easy training 
instead of a training that shall be thorough and exact. 
Cleverness seems to be substituted for exactitude, and the 
result is very unsatisfactory so far as any real and practical 
results are concerned. 

“It is very discouraging to one who holds in view a real, 
material, and vital advancement in the practical uses of 
art to meet so many young artists, who, having passed from 
the schools, seek in vain for opportunities whereby they 
may earn a modest living... . 

“T would not have you think I am pessimistic, nor would 
I have you think that I want to set myself up in needless 
and carping criticism of my brother artists’? work or of the 
methods whereby they have been taught. I merely mean 
to present my views quite frankly and in confidence. I stand 
for results, and, so far, our American system of art has 
not produced adequate results. ... ” 


To W. M. R. French. 

SAprikoG; 1905: 
. .. I think in many parts of the country the art 
world is beginning to appreciate that my instruction is not 


[ 223 ] 


c¢ 


HOWARD PYLE: |} A “CHRONICLES 


given with the object of teaching young artists to make book 
illustrations. I am aware that my own work has been very 
largely identified with that art—first, because I am very 
fond of that particular channel of work; secondly, because 
I think that a wider impression can be made upon the world 
of American Art through book illustrations than through 
any other medium; and thirdly, because book and magazine 
illustrations are very remunerative, and in the peculiar cir- 
cumstances of my life I have been obliged to consider that 
phase of the subject. My purposes, however, have, I be- 
lieve, a much wider scope than that, for it seems to me 
that the great art of the world is constructed upon a line 
almost identical with that of book and magazine illustration, 
more especially now that the color processes are becoming 
more and more perfect. For if we substitute a small flat 
decorated space for a very large flat decorated space there 
is not such a vast difference between the best book illustra- 
tion and a mural painting. 

“My objective, however, in teaching my pupils is that 
they should be fitted for any kind of art, whether of easel 
painting or even the minor uses of portrait painting. But 
I deem it advisable that they should put it to the test what 
their degree of excellence really is, not by the method of 
school competition, but by the broader and larger means of 
a public decision in the pages of a magazine. This is a 
very much larger jury, I hold, than a jury of teachers in 
an art school and the result has been that my pupils soon 
find their level—that some of them linger in the paths of 
illustrative work because they like it, and that others drift 
into other channels of work because they prefer those. 

“Among my older pupils, for instance, are Miss Violet 


[ 224 ] 


SCHOOLS AND THEORIES OF ART 


Oakley, whose trend is entirely in the direction of mural 
work and glass; Mr. F. E. Schoonover, who, while his work 
is only just beginning to make an impression, has already 
received a commission to paint a picture of his own choice 
of subject which involves a remuneration to the amount of 
$1,000; and Miss Ida Daugherty, who is devoting herself 
almost entirely to stained glass, in which she promises to 
make a marked and major success provided she cares to 
continue in that work.” 


To W. M. R. French. 
“June 22, 1905. 

. . . It is quite true that I do think that our present 
system of art education is not adequate to our requirements, 
and it is true that I find it a practical fact and not a theory 
that the education given by the academies to the young artists 
who come to me for instruction has to be unlearned before 
I can impart the facts that are necessary to make their art of 
practical use in the world. 


c¢ 


“T am very clear in my own mind as to the reason for 
this, and I do not think they are at all involved or obscure. 
Let me explain: I think you may easily see that in the 
making of a successful picture, the artist must compose and 
arrange his figures and effects altogether from his imagina- 
tion, and that there is very little opportunity in the making 
of such a picture for him to copy exactly the position of a 
model placed before him in the lights and shadows which 
the studios afford. Nor is it likely that he can find any 
background to copy accurately and exactly into such an 
imaginative picture. 

“For example: suppose an artist were called upon to 


[ 225 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICEE 


paint a picture of a man running away from his enemies 
along the shores of a sea, with a gray sky overhead, and 
a strong wind blowing over the landscape. You see, he 
could not pose a model in the required position, for not 
only could no model hold such a position as that of a man 
running, with a center of gravity projected far beyond the 
point of impact; but even if the model were suspended in 
the air in such a position, yet he would not convey the idea 
of running. Apart from this it would be very difficult to 
find exactly the seascape to fit the picture, and exactly the 
landscape. For all this, the man must draw, not upon the 
facts of nature, but upon his imagination. 

“If I have expressed myself at all clearly, you will see 
that what a man needs to paint an imaginative picture of 
such a sort, is not the power of imitation, but the knowledge 
to draw a figure from imagination... . ” 


To W. M. R. French. 

“July 17) 1605: 
. . . For after all, a man is not an artist by virtue of 
clever technique or brilliant methods: he is fundamentally 
an artist in the degree that he is able to sense and appreciate 
the significance of life that surrounds him, and to express 
that significance to the minds of others. 

“No man can impart that divine gift to another, but he 
may encourage its growth instead of stifling it by a hard 
incrustation of academic methods. 

“I wish with all my soul that our American art schools 
would awake to this vital fact, and not say, as is sometimes 
said, that ‘such a method of teaching is all very well for 
illustrating, but it does not apply to painting.’ I marvel that 

[ 226 | 


«¢ 


SCHOOLS AND THEORIES OF ART 


our American art schools remain blinded to the fact that no 
great picture of the past has ever come down to us that has 
not remained alive because it is the expression of an ideal, 
and not merely the skillful rendering of a fact... . ” 


From the foregoing accounts and letters one can see what 
a vast amount of thought and energy Howard Pyle gave 
to the subject of instruction; one can perceive something 
of his ardent desire to lend his influence to the advance- 
ment of an American Art; but one cannot possibly conceive 
of the sincere devotion which inspired all his teaching. 
Only his pupils could know that, they who saw year after 
year the unflagging kindliness and interest which was con- 
tinuously showered upon them. It is a pleasing reflection 
upon human nature that their gratitude has been so uniformly 
copious. 


{227 


CHAPTER XI 
MURAL DECORATION 


Te OWARD the end of the nineteenth century and 
the beginning of the twentieth there was in America 
a vast increase in popular interest in mural paintings. 
The architects of public buildings were insisting upon the 
importance of decoration, and were everywhere planning 
wall spaces that required the work of the rising mural 
painters. Vedder, Abbey, Blashfield, Cox and many others 
were doing excellent things; mural decoration was assuming 
larger proportions than it ever had before in this country. 
Under conditions such as these it was inevitable that Howard 
Pyle should turn his attention to this branch of art. For 
many years he had desired, if ever the opportunity should 
present itself, to paint some large mural decoration, in 
which he could create a lasting evidence of the historical 
knowledge which he had acquired from so many years of 
illustrative work. 

Some of his friends in Boston were very anxious that he 
should paint an historical picture in the Massachusetts 
House of Representatives, and did everything in their power 
to make it possible. In the end, however, the scheme 
failed. When it was fairly evident that nothing would 
come of it, he wrote thus to his friend, Winthrop Scudder 
of Cambridge, who had been one of those most active in 
trying to get the commission for him: “ ... I did not 

[ 228 | 


MURAL DECORATION 


count very much upon it, but still as it was an opportunity 
that afforded the opening of a very small crack of chance, 
I did not think it well to allow it to pass by without de- 
veloping it to the fullest. I do not count very much upon 
the matter. I have very good art friends in Boston, but 
upon the whole I do not feel that the Boston people are in 
sympathy with the Art which I represent. Your Museum, 
for instance, debars from its walls all pictures that are of 
an historic nature, limiting itself to such others as appear 
to me to represent that which is purely technical or that 
which is simply ornate. To my mind the tendency of 
Modern Art is of another sort. It seems to me that Art 
through the past has tended to develop into that which 
is more widely humane than simple decorative art can 
represent, and it is toward this end that my work has been 
directed. 

“T do not feel that your people agree with me in this, 
nor do I think that the art opinion throughout the country 
entirely agrees with me. There are many who coincide 
with such an opinion but they are still in the minority, and 
I think the large majority in Boston are opposed to such 
a view. In this of course they may be right and I may be 
wrong—it is entirely a matter of opinion, but, at the same 
time, as I have my opinion I must stand with it and fall 
with it, and in this case I do not think that there is the 
slightest possibility of the art authorities of Massachusetts 
desiring my work in their House of Representatives, 

“As Governor Walcott writes, the space upon the walls 
of the House of Representatives is proposed to be filled by 
a decorative or allegorical subject and not by historical sub- 


jects. I think I could paint a Battle of Bunker Hill; I think 
[ 229 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


I could paint a picture of the smoke, the thunder, the roar 
of the battle, the bareheaded, wounded, and shattered 
columns of British advancing, the trampled grass, the smoke 
of the burning houses, and over beyond all the quaint town 
reposing silently and peacefully in the afternoon sunlight. 
The image is very clear in my own mind, and if I could 
materialize it upon canvas I think I might be able to show 
the sunlight, the heat and the desperate human earnestness 
of the grim red-coated heroes marching up that hill to 
their death. 

“T doubt whether I could paint ‘Massachusetts Crowned 
with Plenty, or ‘Massachusetts Standing a Bulwark for 
Freedom against Tyranny.’ I do not know whether I could 
paint a decorative subject in tones of blue and silver or blue 
and gray, but I am very sure I should not venture to make 
the attempt. Whether or not the one subject is Art and 
the other subject is not Art seems to me to be a question 
that is almost parochial in its limitations, but if the good 
people of Massachusetts prefer the one to the other and if 
they choose to say that that which illuminates their walls 
shall be of the one sort and shall further say that the other 
sort is not truly Art, I must be prepared to submit to their 
dictum in so far as their walls are concerned. 

“T write thus to you in full because I very much question 
whether it would be worth your while to trouble yourself 
any further in the matter. I think I may say that I am 
as well qualified to paint such a picture as any man in the 
United States, but that is altogether apart from the question. 

‘(When a man is as old as I he must stand or fall by his 
opinions, and I do not think there is a foothold for me in 

[ 230 | 








= 


MURAL DECORATION 


Massachusetts. If this is so it would be more than all our 
enthusiasms and strength and limitless friendship could do 
to prop up my cause to make it stand... . ”? 

In spite of this failure in Boston, however, Howard Pyle 
did not give up the idea of some day doing mural painting. 
In order to gain some practical knowledge of the art, he 
began a series of wall decorations for a room in his house 
at Wilmington. These were not completed until 1905, 
when one of them was exhibited at the Society of Architects 
with considerable Success. In the same year came the golden 
opportunity. Cass Gilbert, the architect for the Minnesota 
State Capitol, gave him the commission for a large picture 
of “The Battle of Nashville” to be placed in the Gover- 
nor’s Reception Room. It was just the sort: of painting 
that he was supremely fitted to do, and when completed it 
was a2 magnificent triumph. A year after it had been put 
in position, Cass Gilbert wrote him: “ . .. I have just this 
morning returned from St. Paul, where I have had a chance 
to see your superb picture of ‘The Battle of Nashville.’ 
I want again to congratulate you with all my heart upon 
your distinguished success in this picture. I am very proud 
to have it in the building. It isa great work of Art... . ” 

Then, in 1907, he painted for another building of Cass 
Gilbert’s, the Essex County Court House in Newark, New 
Jersey, “The Landing of Carteret,” which is thought by 
many to be the best example of his work in this style. In 
a letter to W. Walton, July 28, 1906, he gives a complete 
account of all the mural work which he had done up to 
this time, including “The Landing of Carteret,” on which 
he was then at work: 

*To Winthrop Scudder, December 26, 1898. 


[ 231 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


«| |. As my mural work has only just begun within 
the past year or so, and as I only worked at it in the inter- 
vals of my other occupations, the list of my work is dis- 
tinguished chiefly on account of its brevity. 

“T suppose the most important of the two examples that 
have been finished within the past year is a set of painted 
panels which decorate my own house.’ 

“This decoration consists of a series of seven panels: 
four of them figure panels, and three of them landscapes. 
Of the four figure panels, two are quite large (8 by 10) 
and two are smaller (8 by 3). These four represent ‘The 
Genus of Art,’ ‘The Genus of Literature,’ ‘The Genus 
of Music,’ and ‘The Genus of Drama.’ The two larger 
panels are quite elaborate groups of figures. 

“<The Genus of Art? was exhibited (unfinished) in the 
Society of Architects, in 1905, and appeared to attract a 
good deal of attention; at least, it was given a very dis- 
tinguished place in the Exhibition, and I heard quite a 
great deal of comment upon it. 

“Tn this panel, The Genus of Art, clad in semi-transpar- 
ent golden draperies, is leading a procession of figures who 
are following admiringly after her. The picture is quite 
filled with blossoms, and two peacocks, gaudy with iri- 
descent color, march with the leading figure. 

“The second panel—*The Genus of Literature’-—repre- 
sents a dark-clad figure crowned with bay leaves, and 
standing against a wide, open sky with a strip of ocean in 
the distance. She is chanting to the accompaniment of a 
golden lyre which she plays, and a group of figures at the 


* These paintings have now passed into the possession of the Wilmington 
Society of the Fine Arts, and are on view in the gallery of the Wilmington 
Public Library. 


[ 232 ] 


MURAL DECORATION 


other end of the panel sit or stand listening to her. This 
composition is arranged with a certain severity of form, ex- 
cepting that the fruit trees, which in the first picture bear 
blossoms, in this are filled with fruit. 

“One of the smaller panels, depicting ‘The Genus of 
Drama,’ represents a smiling and rather jocund figure 
crowned with roses. She is standing, leaning against a rather 
thin tree, and holds in her hand a tragic mask. Behind 
her is the sea, and around her a considerable space of sky. 

“The other smaller panel, ‘The Genus of Music,’ pre- 
sents a dancing figure clad in thin, rosy draperies, playing 
a dual pipe. The flowering blossoms from the first panel 
(‘The Genus of Art’) extend across through a second en- 
tirely floral panel, and reach into and embrace this rosy-clad 
dancing figure. 

“At the end of the room are two landscape panels, in 
which the blossoms on one side melt into the severer forms 
of the other, and tie the two ideas together. 

“The seventh panel is a smaller mantel piece depicting 
the sky shining through a cluster of blossoms. 

“This work has been distinctly a work of love, and has 
occupied my leisure for some time past. I have been 
painting upon it now and then for a year or more when 
I could snatch an hour or half a day from my other work. 

“The other mural work which I have just finished, or 
rather am just finishing, is of an entirely different type 
from this. It is a panel six by eight feet and is not so 
much a decoration as it is a wall painting. It represents 
the Battle of Nashville, and is intended to hang in the 
Governor’s Room in the Capitol at St. Paul. 

“Fortunately the subject lent itself to very picturesque 


[ 233 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


treatment. It depicts the charge of the Minnesota regi- 
ments at the closing of General Thomas’ great battle (The 
Battle of Nashville). This charge occurred at the close 
of a rainy day in winter, following a thaw of frigid weather. 
The regiment charged across a very muddy cornfield, in 
which the water had gathered in puddles, so that the racing 
men are caked with mud. The Confederates had built an 
entrenchment behind a stone wall (represented as running 
diagonally across the picture) and the moment chosen for 
the composition is the instant when the charging crowd of 
men is pouring like a wave over the wall. In the distance 
of the picture is a height known as Shy’s Hill, on which 
a battery had been planted, and upon which the smoke is 
booming out from the firing guns. The canopy of smoke 
is just lifting from the battle, showing the last desperate 
stand of the few Confederates in the trench, whilst behind 
these few a hurry of men is seen retreating through the 
vapors of gunpowder smoke. 

“Besides these two pictures, I have now already in hand 
another mural painting, (6 by 18) representing The Land- 
ing of Carteret, and intended for the Board of Freeholders’ 
Room in the New Essex County Court House. This picture 
is still different from the others, discussed above. It repre- 
sents a hot July day, over which a rain storm has just passed. 
The scene is laid at the edge of a brimming marsh land 
(such as I conceive the shores of Newark Bay to have been 
at that time). In the center of the picture is gathered quite 
a group of figures (the captain of the vessel, the secretary 
of the newly appointed Governor, the crown officer, reading 
Carteret’s credentials). The central figure of Carteret is 
clad entirely in red, and catches the eye as the most promi- 


[ 234 ] 


MURAL DECORATION 


nent object. At the left-hand end of the picture is a 
group of humble settlers, listening to the reading of the 
credentials. At the right of the picture (into which reaches 
a long board landing stage or wharf) is a group of newly 
arrived immigrants, who are waiting respectfully while the 
credentials are read. Back of these figures are two other 
crowds of immigrants, and are all uncovered excepting 
Carteret, who wears his slouch and feather hat. ‘These 
figures are standing in the passage of a cloud shadow. The 
air is filled with a golden-yellow light, and the sun in the 
distance bursts forth upon the ship (The Philip) riding at 
anchor in the bay. A group of immigrants from the 
ship is just landing at the extremity of the landing stage, 
bearing with them great bundles of clothing and other 
Pelenemps) 0... 


A letter to Howland D. Perrine gives an interesting idea 
of the research necessary for such a picture as “The Landing 
of Carteret”: 


pee be tacts of the landing of Carteret are of the 
meagerest possible sort, and in consequence I was obliged 
to paint my picture largely from surmise and analogy. For 
instance, I felt that it would be reasonable to suppose that 
Carteret would not simply land from his ship, The Philip, 
without taking some form of official possession of the new 
province; so that while there is no account of what that 
official ceremony was, I felt tolerably sure that it would 
consist in reading aloud the royal grant to the proprietor, 
and the authority of the proprietor appointing Sir Philip 
Carteret as his representative and governor. I judged this 


[ 235] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


because in the few scraps of authentic narrative that have 
reached us, it says that the new governor had his secretary 
with him. The secretary would be likely to present such 
credentials. Consequently, I deemed it to be reasonable 
to suppose that the various steps of taking possession would 
be about as follows: first, that the ship would sail up into 
the bay to some convenient point of anchorage whence the 
immigrants and their belongings could be put ashore. This 
would be done, doubtless, at some such pier or landing stage 
as I have attempted to depict in my picture. As soon as 
the ship came to anchor, debarkation would immediately 
begin, and doubtless several immigrants with their belongings 
would be sent ashore. 

“Second, the Governor would not be willing for these 
immigrants to land until he had entered formally into 
his Governorship, and probably he would send a couple of 
musketeers to the wharf to see that these people did not quit 
the wharf landing until he himself had first set foot upon 
his new province. 

“Third, word would undoubtedly have been sent to the 
original settlers commanding them to meet the Governor at 
his point of landing, so that there would doubtless be quite 
a little party of them gathered at the spot of debarkation. 

“Fourth, it would undoubtedly be the case that the Gov- 
ernor would land with some official pomp. He would 
probably bring with him his secretary, the Captain of the 
ship, and perhaps some gentleman adventurer who would 
accompany him. It was quite necessary in those days for 
a public officer to have his trumpeter, who acted as a sort 
of herald-messenger. Anthony van Corlear stood in such 
a capacity to Governor Stuyvesant, and there are numerous 


[ 236 | 


MURAL DECORATION 


contemporary prints that represent such a trumpeter deliv- 
ering a message to his master from someone with whom he 
would communicate. Consequently, I deemed it reasonable 
to suppose that such a trumpeter would first come before 
the company, that he would announce the title of the Gov- 
ernor and his degree, that the Governor would then come 
forward, and that the Secretary would immediately read 
his credentials to the assembled settlers. 

“All this seems to me to be a very reasonable conjecture, 
but there is unfortunately no absolute authority bearing it 
out. There is a tradition that Carteret marched to the site 
of Elizabethtown with a hoe over his shoulder, and that 
he there struck the hoe into the earth and so began the 
foundation of that settlement. This story is very apocryphal, 
so much so that I feared to represent it. It is likely that the 
event really did happen, but it is almost absolutely certain 
that it was not performed in any bucolic manner, but that 
it was some formality that the Governor performed which, 
like the laying of a corner stone, was intended to typify the 
foundation of the enterprise. 

“So far as portraiture is concerned, it was, of course, 
quite impossible for me to find any authentic likeness. 
I failed even to discover any presentation of Carteret him- 
self. I suppose you know that there are very few authentic 
portraits of the earlier colonial governors. Even of those 
which we acknowledge, fully half of them are of questionable 
authenticity... . ”? 

The next essay in the field of mural decoration was a 
group of pictures for the Hudson County Court House at 
Jersey City. Frank Millet, who was later so tragically lost 


*Letter to Howland D. Perrine, February 26, 1907. 


[ 237] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


in the Titanic disaster at the very height of his powers, was 
in charge of the decoration of the various rooms, and had 
immediately selected Howard Pyle to do five pictures of 
an historical nature, illustrating the discovery of the Hudson 
River and the early settling of its banks. These pictures 
are remarkable for their coloring, perhaps the best that 
is exhibited in any of his mural paintings. He was assisted 
in the finishing of these pictures by Stanley Arthurs and 
Frank Schoonover. 

In 1910 he came to the conclusion that for the remainder 
of his life he would devote himself entirely to mural decora- 
tion, and with that in view he went to Italy, that he might 
there be able to study the old masters, especially their 
coloring. This was a brave decision, for he had long been 
opposed to any foreign influence, and had vigorously 
opposed all European innovations in American Art. Now he 
began to feel that if he were to go on with his career of 
wall decoration, it was imperative that he should know 
much more thoroughly the pictures of the Italian masters. 

He was not destined, however, to reap the benefits of his 
studies in Italy. He was not well when he left America, 
and after a lingering illness he died at Florence in November 
of the next year. With his death, American Art lost a great 
figure who would, had he been able to carry out the new 
impulses which Italy gave him, doubtless have left mural 
paintings far superior to any of those by which we know him. 


[ 238 ] 


CHAPPER X11] 
ITALY AND THE END 


at LLUSION was made in the preceding chapter to 
the Italian journey and Howard Pyle’s purposes 
in undertaking it. After many years, spent almost 
entirely in writing and illustrating, opportunities for exten- 
sive mural work seemed to be unfolding, and he felt that in 
order to prosecute them with greater sureness and more 
abundant knowledge the European, particularly the Italian, 
background was desirable. Before this time he had refrained 
from going to Europe because he was afraid that he might 
lose something of the American spirit, which he thought 
so necessary an adjunct both to his creative work and to his 
teaching. He made arrangements with his publishers that 
sufficient material for illustration should be sent to him from 
time to time that he might not get out of touch with market 
conditions as they existed in America. Then on November 
22, 1910, he sailed from New York accompanied by his 
family and Miss Gertrude Brinckle, his secretary. 

Just at this time he began to be afflicted with exceedingly 
bad health, which was at least partially due to too sedulous 
a preoccupation with his work. When one considers the 
vast number of things which he had accomplished between 
1876 and 1910, one can only wonder how any human frame 
could bear up under such uninterrupted exertion. Literally 
thousands of illustrations, against almost none of which 


[ 239 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


could carelessness be urged by the most exacting critic; 
nineteen books, and many uncollected short stories; fourteen 
mural paintings, not to mention a number of book plates and 
several excellent easel-paintings; all these were the pro- 
ductions of something less than thirty-four years, during 
which time he read voluminously, and devoted himself 
passionately to his family. His whole life was a record of 
industry which can be matched but rarely in the annals of 
American art and letters. But in 1910 the strain began to 
tell. He was ill when he reached Italy, and at no time 
during his year’s residence there did he regain the robust 
health which he had always enjoyed up to that time. His 
spirit was depressed; he was incapable of the enthusiasm 
which had been one of the outstanding characteristics of his 
nature. Suffering as he was, he could see Italy only 
through the veil of his own illness. It is, therefore, not 
surprising that he was not so overwhelmingly impressed 
with the ancient country as one would expect an artist of 
his temperament, keenly alive to the beauty of the past, 
to be. It is, on the whole, a great tribute to his apprecia- 
tion that in northern Italy he found so many things which 
could move him to admiration. : 

Extracts from some of the letters to various of his Wil- 
mington pupils will give in sufficient detail the tenor of his 
life in Italy: 


To Stanley Arthurs from Florence. 
“December 16, 1910. 
“. . I have been knocked up with a bilious attack or a 
stomach attack or something of the kind, and have had a 
[ 240 ] 


ITALY AND THE END 


two weeks’ siege of it which has prevented my doing any 
work—or my doing anything. 

“. . . It (Florence) seems to be a wonderful place, and 
very interesting, but it is dirty and ramshackle compared to 
our American ideals. In fact, Italy, especially the southern 
part, impresses me as a great big charnel house, full of the 
dead and chiefly of the dead bones of the past; and while 
northern Italy, and especially Florence, is much more pros- 
perous, still the charnel house idea remains with me, and I 
think I shall use it in an article. 

“As for Rome, I hate it. I was in my room all the time 
but twice, and when I went out then I saw the Roman ruins, 
and not Saint Peter’s and the great pictures and statues. 
The ‘Moses’ was the only thing I saw. As for the Roman 
ruins, they are without shape, weatherworn, and channeled 
by the rivulets of centuries of rain. They are black in some 
places and white in others, and are, I think, ugly and dis- 
agreeable. I saw nothing beautiful in them, but only the 
weatherworn remnants of a past and forgotten age. 

“In contrast to this I like Florence very much, and am 
sure that I shall like it better as time goes on. I want to 
get to the Garden of the Medicis and the place where Lor- 
enzo de Medici breathed his last. I am almost sure that 
will be very beautiful, and I am going to make my first 


aricie upon it... .” 


To Stanley Arthurs. 
“December 21, 1910. 


« I like Florence very much, but have not yet seen 
it under the best auspices. We are just now :n a pension or 
boarding-house, and I am not very fond of boarding-house 
life—in fact, my long domestic life has unfitted me for it. 


[241 | 


HOWARD (PYLE: A CHRONICLES 


I get along pretty well excepting at meal times and in the 
evening. At meals we form a part of a long table a@héte 
of uninteresting people, and though they are now more in- 
teresting than they were at first, they are not yet thrillingly 
so. In the evenings we have a very uncomfortable sitting 
room where the family gathers and where Mrs. Pyle reads 
tous. But we have found now a furnished apartment which 
I think will be very nice... . 

“. . . I wished a great many times that I had you boys 
here to enjoy this with me. I wish also that my strength 
would come back to me, for I am as yet quite weak—too 
weak to work—for I had a very sharp and intense illness 
while it lasted, and it seems to have cut away nearly all 
of my virility and strength. I am much better, however, 
and expect each week to find a studio and do at least some 
Works ee. 

“.. . I think, however, that both you and Frank ought 
to come over here to Italy. It will be a great lesson to you 
in the way of color, composition, etc., for the old masters 
certainly were glorious painters and I take back all that I 
ever said against them. . . .” 

“. . . Ido not think Italy is what it is cracked up to be. 
There are plenty of old buildings in a wonderful state of 
preservation, but the place itself seems run down, dilapidated 
and dirty. There are some exceptions to this. Among these 
is the Ufhzi and Pitti collection of the paintings of the Old 
Masters. 

To Ethel Pennewill Brown. 
“December 27, 1910. 

“You know I did not think much of the Old Masters, see- 
ing them in black and white, but in color they are so re- 

[ 242 ] 


BLALY AND Lik OR ND 


markable that I do not see how any human being painted as 
they did. You stand among them and you feel that you are 
surrounded by a glow of soft warm ardent colors in which 
the yellows and the browns are the predominant tone and 
the wonderful blues and crimsons are the relieving note. 
Two pictures of Botticelli I saw yesterday are the most re- 
markable pieces of color work that I have ever seen in my 
life. One of them in particular, a rich, dark gray with a 
crimson tone is so remarkable a piece of color that I do not 
think of anything to parallel it. All the time I was there, 
I kept thinking of my pupils and wishing that they could 
see these pictures. It would be such a great and splendid 
lesson to them for all their future color work. 

“. .. The architecture I do not think very much of. 
The churches are all of variegated marble, mosaiced in odd 
forms, so that you lose the very semblance and the purity 
of the architectural design—if there is any such design. The 
palaces all look like prisons. The courts inside seem to be 
very fine (carved pillars, and so on) but on the whole they 
are a disappointment to me. The plain houses and streets, 
however, are very interesting—very winding and intricate, 
with an occasional arch overhead, connecting one house with 
another, and a great turmoil and bustle in the street below. 

“T think on the whole I am getting to like Florence better 
and better the longer I stay here, but it will never take the 
place of America. We, in our new country, look to the 
future; these people look to the past, and are satisfied with 
it. We experiment in color, and in so experimenting, get 
all sorts of oddities and peculiarities—they are satisfied with 
what men did three or four centuries ago. With us every- 
thing is clean and pure and well kept, in Italy they are 

[ 243 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


dirty, unkempt, and while they are not ramshackle, they 
do not keep the outsides of their houses in neat and perfect 
fepait wen 
To Stanley Arthurs and Frank Schoonover. 

“January I, I9II. 

«|. We are getting more and more settled here in 
Florence. We have left the pension, and have taken an 
apartment at 6 Via Garibaldi, which I trust will be our ad- 
dress for the next year and a half to come. The rooms 
are very comfortable, and at ome time were occu- 
pied by Lord Byron when he was here in Florence. We 
are in the third story of the house, which is not nearly so 
fashionable as the second, but it suits us admirably. 

“, . I have only to say in closing that I think I have 
entirely recovered from my sickness, and I feel better and 
stronger than I have ever felt; but only blue because I 
have not yet got a studio, and because I think it will be so 
expensive to get one. . . .” | 
To Stanley Arthurs. 

«January II, 1911. 

“ . . The old buildings, especially the churches, are ex- 
ceedingly dirty places outside, but inside there are great 
treasures; and as for the galleries, they are exceedingly 
beautiful with their miles of priceless pictures. Some of 
these pictures, especially the Raphaels, have been retouched, 
but in the main they are as originally painted. This is es- 
pecially true of the Botticellis, which are exceedingly fine. 
I hope these pictures will influence me without influencing 
me too greatly. 

“c , . I wish I had some work to do other than illustra- 


[ 244 ] 


LLALYOAND THE END 


tion so as to try to live up to what I have learned. Of 
course, I have to earn my living, but it is rather hard to be 


limited to illustration. .. .” 


To Ethel Pennewill Brown. 
“Rebruary 15, 1911. 


«| | Already the spring is beginning to approach—one 
feels it in the air. It is not like the spring of America, when 
the south wind comes up from the Caribbean Islands, and 
makes you think of foreign parts; but it is just a balmy 
glow that seems to cover and embrace everything. . . .” 


To Stanley Arthurs. 
“April 24, 191I. 


“ — . We do not know in America how beautiful fifty 
generations of culture will make a country. You have to 
see the surroundings of Florence in springtime for that. 
The quaint sights of the peasantry doing their work—the 
men ploughing with a single-handed plough; and once we 
saw a man and a woman dragging a plough, while another 
man directed it. Of course the soil is very light and gen- 
erous, or they could not do it. It is all exceedingly beauti- 
ful, and all that I want now is plenty of work to keep me 


d 


[55 Ue ia 


To Stanley Arthurs from San Domenico. 
“August 5, I9II. 
«| . I suppose you saw that Abbey died after an opera- 
tion in London. It came as a great shock of surprise, for 
I had not even known that he was sick. I wish I could get 
some further particulars of it. 
«|, Since writing to you I have been ill with renal 


[ 245 | 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


colic but I am now entirely recovered. This trouble is very 
painful while it lasts, but it does not seem to leave any lin- 
gering consequences. This attack came to me from a long 
and tiresome journey to Genoa and return.” 


To Ethel Pennewill Brown. 

“August 10, 1911. 
. Tam much ote to you for your expression of 
Ltt for my late sickness. It was very painful, but not 
really serious, and was the result of a long and tedious jour- 


«¢ 


ney to Genoa to meet my son Howard. It is curious how 
different one’s anticipation and realization are. I had been 
looking forward to going to Genoa with Mrs. Pyle, but it 
was hot, wearisome, and exhausting. My first attack of 
renal colic was there. My return to Florence induced an- 
other and more severe spell, but I am now entirely recov- 
ered from it, and am getting quite back into my old tone 
again. I thought at first I would not be able to do so, but 
I am now well and strong and growing stronger every day. 
I would not like to be really sick here in Italy away from 
my home belongings, and I will now exercise a little more 
care and then I will come home well and strong. 

“The weather in Florence this summer has been exceed- 
ingly hot and very dry. We have not had really any rain 
for upwards of six weeks, but I believe they are accustomed 
to this dry weather here in Italy during the summer. The 
trees seem to keep their leaves and are dry and bosky. There 
are patches of brown in the grass, but apart from that Nature 
looks very fresh and beautiful. 

“Upon the whole, however, I shall be glad when I am 

[ 246 | 


Aa Neri eat IN ED 


back in Florence again. The city has a great fascination for 
me. And I have far more personal liberty there than here, 
everywhere here are high stone walls that shut out the 
property from the highroads. This insures privacy but it 
confines one within a certain limit which I find to be very 
depressing and personally annoying. I like to wander, as 
I do in America over hill and dale and through fields and 
valley, but I cannot do it here at all without coming plump 
against a wall nine feet high. Some of the roads are very 
picturesque, but they do not take the place of the quiet fer- 
Mey oi nature... .” 

As one can see from the foregoing extracts, there were 
times when he felt to the full the charms of Italy; those 
were days when he might almost be said to have regained 
his youthful zest. But these were the exceptions. Depres- 
sion was continually seizing him; he could work but little, 
and idleness was so strange to him that he found it unpleas- 
ant. Then to add disappointment to his physical difficulties, 
he found that the architects from whom he was expecting 
contracts were either placing them in other hands or deciding 
not to use mural decorations. This was a terrific blow, for 
not only had be planned the Italian trip largely to further 
the painting of those pictures, but also he was depending to a 
certain extent upon the funds with which they would pro- 
vide him. Everything seemed to be conspiring to make him 
unhappy. 

After leaving San Domenico, he spent a few weeks in 
Siena, where he was comparatively well. But on his return 
from Florence he had a sharp bilious attack, which left him 
in a much more serious condition than he had been before, 

; [ 247 ] 


HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE 


and which hastened his death, which occurred a few days 
later, on November 9, 1911. 

He had accomplished, however, his greatest mission in 
life: he had been instrumental, along with Abbey, Frost, and 
others of his early comrades, in raising the illustrative art in 
America to a level which had been hitherto unknown. He 
had by the consummate artistry of his own creative work and 
by the energy of his teaching helped to lift it from the 
tawdry commonplaceness in which he had found it in 1876 
to the flowering beauty in which he left it in 1911. But in 
another field he had done more, and perhaps without so 
much conscious effort. Any child whose early years have 
been colored by the Robin Hood or The Wonder Clock 
or Men of Iron will not soon forget the pleasure which 
Howard Pyle has afforded him. The name of the author 
of Robin Hood should be written high upon the roll of those 
whom children love. 

Nothing could be more fitting in conclusion than the clos- 
ing words of Henry Mills Alden’s glowing tribute to him 
as they appeared in an edition of Harper's Magazine soon 
after his death. 

“Pyle . . . was first of all and always an illustrator. Be- 
cause he was transcendently that, he was something more 
than that, especially in his sense and handling of color and 
in the spirit which animated and informed his creations. He 
never failed to give his meaning in the picture itself, whether 
illustration or mural painting; but he delighted in correlating 
his meanings by means of the written story, which was al- 
ways virile, significant, and charmingly antique and 
idiomatic. 

“Fis work as author and artist was, for us all, and a good 

[ 248 | 


ITALY AND THE END 


part of it especially for youth, a fresh revival of the Ro- 
mantic. But, though it occupied the field of wonder, it had 
no Rossetti-like transfiguration and exaltation, no vagueness. 
Without any loss of wonder, his meanings were plain. We 
shall not see his like again.” 





From 

HOW THE DECLARATION WAS 
RECEIVED IN THE OLD THIRTEEN 
Harper's Magazine, 1892 


[ 249 ] 





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